Venery. Also trez. [The same word as TREY three, in dice, cards, etc.; re-spelt after BAY sb.6 Believed to go back in oral use to 18th c. at least.] The third branch of a stag’s horn. Also tray antler, tray tine.
1812. Ld. Graves, Lett. (June 2) to Ld. Ebrington in ref. to Stag-hunting Establmt. of Devon (Exeter, 1814), 14. His brow, bay, and tray antlers are termed his Rights.
1838. Scrope, Art Deer-stalking, 2, 3. The stag’s brow, bay and tray antlers are called his rights…. A warrantable stag has brow, bay and tray, and two points on the tops of both horns. Note. I have taken my nomenclature from the Devonshire Hunt, as the best authority. It has been founded considerably above a century.
1863. Kingsley, Water-Bab., ii. 62. You may know … what his rights mean, if he has them, brow, bay, tray, and points.
1884. Jefferies, Red Deer, iv. Close to the head a point springs from the beam and is curved upwards; this is called the brow point. Just over it a second starts,… this is called the bay. There is then an interval, till some way up the beam, or main stem, a third—the tray—appears.
1893. Lydekker, Horns & Hoofs, 269. The third the trez, tray, or royal tine. Ibid., 320. [The elk’s] antlers … rise from the sides of the skull by a narrow beam … without either brow, bez, or trez-tine.
