at these aforesaid pieces deserve the name of
brawn: the bowels of the beast are commonly cast away because of their
rankness, and so were likewise his stones, till a foolish fantasy got
hold of late amongst some delicate dames, who have now found the means
to dress them also with great cost for a dainty dish, and bring them
to the board as a service among other of like sort, though not without
note of their desire to the provocation of fleshly lust which by this
their fond curiosity is not a little revealed. When the boar is thus
cut out each piece is wrapped up, either with bulrushes, ozier, peels,
tape inkle,[1] or such like, and then sodden in a lead or caldron
together, till they be so tender that a man may thrust a bruised rush
or straw clean through the fat: which being done, they take it up and
lay it abroad to cool. Afterward, putting it into close vessels, they
pour either good small ale or beer mingled with verjuice and salt
thereto till it be covered, and so let it lie (now and then altering
and changing the sousing drink lest it should wax sour) till occasion
serve to spend it out of the way. Some use to make brawn of great
barrow hogs, and seethe them, and souse the whole as they do that of
the boar; and in my judgment it is the better of both, and more easy
of digestion. But of brawn thus much, and so much may seem sufficient.

[1] Tape.

CHAPTER XIII

OF WILD AND TAME FOWLS

[1577, Book III., Chapters 9 and 11; 1587, Book III., Chapters
2 and 5.]

Order requireth that I speak somewhat of the fowls also of England,
which I may easily divide into the wild and tame; but, alas! such is
my small skill in fowls that, to say the truth, I can neither recite
their numbers nor well distinguish one kind of them from another. Yet
this I have by general knowledge, that there is no nation under the
sun which hath already in the time of the year more plenty of wild
fowl than we, for so many kinds as our island doth bring forth, and
much more would have if those of the higher soil might be spared but
one year or two from the greedy engines of covetous fowlers which set
only for the pot and purse. Certes this enormity bred great troubles
in King John's days, insomuch that, going in progress about the tenth
of his reign, he found little or no game wherewith to solace himself
or exercise his falcons. Wherefore, being at Bristow in the Christmas
ensuing, he restrained all manner of hawking or taking of w