The underneath edge of the claws round the hollow of the sole was called the _esponde_ (sponde, edge or border). In older stags they were blunter and more worn, and in hinds and younger deer sharper, unless indeed the stag inhabited a damp and mossy country, where the _esponde_ would not be so much worn down as if he lived on a rocky or stony ground. (G. de F., 155, 129-145; Lav., p. 246; Stuart, p. 58; Fortescue, p. 133). And thus did the woodmen of old study the book of nature, which told them all they wished to know, and found for them better illustrations than any art could give.
TRYST, in the language of sport, was the place or stand where the hunter took up his position to await the game he wished to shoot. The game might be driven to him by hounds, or he might so place himself as to shoot as the game went to and from their lair to their pasturing (_see_ Appendix: Stables and Stable-stand). In French it was called shooting _à l'affut_, from _ad fustem_, near the wood, because the shooter leant his back to, or hid behind a tree, so that the game should not see him.
In our MS. we are told that Alaunts are good for hunting the wild boar whether it be with greyhounds, at the "tryst," or with running hounds at bay within the covert. The tryst here would be the place where a man would be stationed to slip the dogs at the wild boar as soon as he broke covert, or after the huntsman had wounded the boar with a shot from his long or cross-bow (p. 118).
VELTRES, _velteres_, _veltrai_. A dog used for the chase, a hound. Probably derived from the Gaelic words _ver_, large or long, and _traith_, a step or course, _vertragus_ being the name by which according to Arian, the Gauls designated a swift hound (Blanc, 52).
WANLACE. Winding in the chase (Halliwell). In the sentence in which this word is used in the chapter on the Mastiff (p. 122) we are told that some of these dogs "fallen to be berslettis and also to bring well and fast a wanlace about." Which probably means that some of these dogs become shooting dogs, and could hunt up the game to the shooter well and fast by ranging or circling. _Wanlasour_ is an obsolete name for one who drives game (Strat.).
In Brit. Mus. MS. Lansdowne 285 there is an interesting reference to setting the forest "with archers or with Greyhounds or with Wanlassours."