thereunto (Leviticus xi.) it is reputed
among the clean food, otherwise John the Baptist would never have lived
with them in the wilderness. In Barbary, Numidia, and sundry other places
of Africa, as they have been,[191] so are they eaten to this day powdered
in barrels, and therefore the people of those parts are called
_Acedophagi_: nevertheless they shorten the life of the eaters, by the
production at the last of an irksome and filthy disease. In India they are
three foot long, in Ethiopia much shorter, but in England seldom above an
inch. As for the cricket, called in Latin _cicada_, he hath some
likelihood, but not very great, with the grasshopper, and therefore he is
not to be brought in as an umpire in this case. Finally, Matthiolus and so
many as describe the locust do set down none other form than that of our
grasshopper, which maketh me so much the more to rest upon my former
imagination, which is that the locust and the grasshopper are one.

CHAPTER XVI.

OF OUR ENGLISH DOGS AND THEIR QUALITIES.

[1577, Book III., Chapter 13; 1587, Book III., Chapter 7.]

There is no country that may (as I take it) compare with ours in number,
excellency, and diversity of dogs.

The first sort therefore he divideth either into such as rouse the beast,
and continue the chase, or springeth the bird, and bewrayeth her flight by
pursuit. And as these are commonly called spaniels, so the other are named
hounds, whereof he maketh eight sorts, of which the foremost excelleth in
perfect smelling, the second in quick espying, the third in swiftness and
quickness, the fourth in smelling and nimbleness, etc., and the last in
subtlety and deceitfulness. These (saith Strabo) are most apt for game,
and called Sagaces by a general name, not only because of their skill in
hunting, but also for that they know their own and the names of their
fellows most exactly. For if the hunter see any one to follow skilfully,
and with likelihood of good success, he biddeth the rest to hark and
follow such a dog, and they eftsoones obey so soon as they hear his name.
The first kind of these are often called harriers, whose game is the fox,
the hare, the wolf (if we had any), hart, buck, badger, otter, polecat,
lopstart, weasel, conie, etc.: the second height a terrier, and it hunteth
the badger and grey only: the third a bloodhound, whose office is to
follow the fierce, and now and then to pursue a thief or beast by his dry
foot: the fourth he