the rest. Of other
ravenous birds we have also very great plenty, as the buzzard, the kite,
the ringtail, dunkite, and such as often annoy our country dames by
spoiling of their young breeds of chickens, ducks, and goslings, whereunto
our very ravens and crows have learned also the way: and so much are
ravens given to this kind of spoil that some idle and curious heads of set
purpose have manned, reclaimed, and used them instead of hawks, when other
could not be had. Some do imagine that the raven should be the vulture,
and I was almost persuaded in times past to believe the same; but, finding
of late a description of the vulture, which better agreeth with the form
of a second kind of eagle, I freely surcease to be longer of that opinion:
for, as it hath, after a sort, the shape, colour, and quantity of an
eagle, so are the legs and feet more hairy and rough, their sides under
their wings better covered with thick down (wherewith also their gorge or
a part of their breast under their throats is armed, and not with
feathers) than are the like parts of the eagle, and unto which portraiture
there is no member of the raven (who is almost black of colour) that can
have any resemblance: we have none of them in England to my knowledge, if
we have, they go generally under the name of eagle or erne. Neither have
we the pygargus or grip, wherefore I have no occasion to treat further. I
have seen the carrion crows so cunning also by their own industry of late
that they have used to soar over great rivers (as the Thames for example)
and, suddenly coming down, have caught a small fish in their feet and gone
away withal without wetting of their wings. And even at this present the
aforesaid river is not without some of them, a thing (in my opinion) not a
little to be wondered at. We have also osprays, which breed with us in
parks and woods, whereby the keepers of the same do reap in breeding time
no small commodity; for, so soon almost as the young are hatched, they tie
them to the butt ends or ground ends of sundry trees, where the old ones,
finding them, do never cease to bring fish unto them, which the keepers
take and eat from them, and commonly is such as is well fed or not of the
worst sort. It hath not been my hap hitherto to see any of these fowl, and
partly through mine own negligence; but I hear that it hath one foot like
a hawk, to catch hold withal, and another resembling a goose, wherewith to
swim; but, whether it be so or