osses with a thousand doubles:
The many musets through the which he goes
Are like a labyrinth to amaze his foes.

Sometimes he runs among a flock of sheep,
To make the cunning hounds mistake their smell,
And sometimes where earth-delving conies keep,
To stop the loud pursuers in their yell,
And sometimes sorteth with a herd of deer:
Danger deviseth shifts; wit waits on fear:

For there his smell with others being mingled,
The hot scent-snuffing hounds are driven to doubt,
Ceasing their clamorous cry till they have singled
With much ado the cold fault cleanly out:
Then do they spend their mouths: Echo replies,
As if another chase were in the skies.

By this, poor Wat, far off upon a hill,
Stands on his hinder legs with listening ear,
To hearken if his foes pursue him still:
Anon their loud alarums he doth hear;
And now his grief may be compared well
To one sore sick that hears the passing-bell.

Then shalt thou see the dew-bedabbled wretch
Turn, and return, indenting with the way;
Each envious brier his weary legs doth scratch,
Each shadow makes him stop, each murmur stay:
For misery is trodden on by many,
And being low never relieved by any.

VII

For breeding purposes choose winter, and release the bitches from hard
work; (1) which will enable them to profit by repose and to produce a
fine progeny towards spring, since that season is the best to promote
the growth of the young dogs. The bitch is in heat for fourteen days,
(2) and the moment at which to put her to the male, with a view to rapid
and successful impregnation, is when the heat is passing off. Choose a
good dog for the purpose. When the bitch is ready to whelp she should
not be taken out hunting continuously, but at intervals sufficient
to avoid a miscarriage through her over-love of toil. The period of
gestation lasts for sixty days. When littered the puppies should be left
to ther own dam, and not placed under another bitch; foster-nursing does
not promote growth in the same way, whilst nothing is so good for them
as their own mother's milk and her breath, (3) and the tenderness of her
caresses. (4)

(1) Or, "Winter is the time at which to pair dogs for breeding, the
bitches to be released from hard work, so that with the repose so
secured they may produce a fine litter in