diversion.' A few extracts from a treatise on the subject may be
interesting as leaves from the book of manners and customs of the
good old times.

The most minute details are given as to the selection of
fighting-cocks, the breeding of game cocks, and 'the dieting and
ordering a cock for battle.' Under this last head we read:--'In
the morning take him out of the pen, and let him spar a while
with another cock. Sparring is after this manner. Cover each of
your cock's heels with a pair of hots made of bombasted rolls of
leather, so covering the spurs that they cannot bruise or wound
one another, and so setting them down on straw in a room, or
green grass abroad; let them fight a good while, but by no means
suffer them to draw blood of one another. The benefit that
accrues hereby is this: it heateth and chafeth their bodies, and
it breaketh the fat and glut that is within them. Having sparred
as much as is sufficient, which you may know when you see them
pant and grow weary, then take them up, and, taking off their
hots, give them a diaphoretic or sweating, after this manner.
You must put them in deep straw- baskets, made for this purpose,
and fill these with straw half way, then put in your cocks
severally, and cover them over with straw to the top; then shut
down the lids, and let them sweat; but don't forget to give them
first some white sugar-candy, chopped rosemary, and butter,
mingled and incorporated together. Let the quantity be about the
bigness of a walnut; by so doing you will cleanse him of his
grease, increase his strength, and prolong his breath. Towards
four or five o'clock in the evening take them out of their
stoves, and, having licked their eyes and head with your tongue,
and put them into their pens, and having filled their throats