It is well known that the precincts of the forests in England had courts of their own, and were governed by different laws from the rest of England; and of course, in treating upon the laws of this country, so learned and so accurate a writer, as Coke is admitted to have been, could not avoid noticing them. In the part of his _Institutes_ upon the Forest Courts, he describes the jurisdiction and functions of those tribunals, and the animals to be met with in the forests of England; and, in the quaint and peculiar language incident to writers of the time of Queen Elizabeth, he proceeds to mention the beasts of chase and of the forest. The following are extracts from his work upon that subject:— “There be many beasts of the forest by the laws of the forests of England. The hart in summer, the hinde in winter, and all that proceed as of them: the buck in summer, the doe in winter, and the proceed of them; the hare, male and female, and their proceed; the wild boar, male and female, and their proceed; and the wolf, male and female, and their proceed; the fox, male and female, and their proceed; the martin, male and female; capreolus the roe, as it appeareth before, is no beast of the forest, but it is a beast of chase.” “The proceads of the hare, the first year a leveret, the second a hare, the third a great hare. Of a wilde boar: a pig, a hogge, a hog-stear, a boar, and after a sanglier.” “No beast of the forest that is _solivagum et nocivum_, is venison, as the fox, the wolf, the martin, because they be no meat, but _caro eorum est nociva_.” “So as the red deer, the fallow deer, the wilde boar, and the hare, are venison. Whereupon these two conclusions in the law of the forest do follow: first, whatsoever beast of the forest is for the food of man is venison, and therewith agreeth Virgil, describing a feast:— “‘Implentur veteris bacchi pinguisq: ferinæ.’” {297}