or the pit he must be fed "three or foure daies only with old
Maunchet (fine white bread) and spring water." He is then set to spar
with another cock, "putting a payre of hots upon each of their heeles,
which Hots are soft, bumbasted roules of Leather, covering their spurs,
so that they cannot hurt each other.... Let them fight and buffet one
another a good space." After exercise the bird must be put into a
basket, covered with hay and set near the fire. "Then let him sweate,
for the nature of this scowring is to bring away his grease, and to
breed breath, and strength." If not killed in the fight, "the first
thing you doe, you shall search his wounds, and as many as you can find
you shall with your mouth sucke the blood out of them, then wash them
with warm salt water,... give him a roule or two, and so stove him up as
hot as you can."

Cocking-mains usually consisted of fights between an agreed number of
pairs of birds, the majority of victories deciding the main; but there
were two other varieties that aroused the particular ire of moralists.
These were the "battle royal," in which a number of birds were "set,"
i.e. placed in the pit, at the same time, and allowed to remain until
all but one, the victor, were killed or disabled; and the "Welsh main,"
in which eight pairs were matched, the eight victors being again paired,
then four, and finally the last surviving pair. Among London cock-pits
were those at Westminster, in Drury Lane, Jewin Street and Birdcage Walk
(depicted by Hogarth). Over the royal pit at Whitehall presided the
king's cockmaster. The pits were circular in shape with a matted stage
about 20 ft. in diameter and surrounded by a barrier to keep the birds
from falling off. Upon this barrier the first row of the audience
leaned. Hardly a town in the kingdom was without its cockpit, which
offered the sporting classes opportunities for betting not as yet
sufficiently supplied by horse-racing. With the growth of the latter
sport and the increased facilities for reaching the racing centres,
cocking gradually declined, especially after parliament passed laws
against it, so that gentlemen risked arrest by attending a main.

Among the best-known devotees of the sport was a Colonel Mordaunt, who,
about 1780, took a number of the best English game-cocks to India. There
he found the sport in high favour with the native rulers and his birds
were beaten. Perhaps the most famous main in England took place at
Lincoln