body unto a monstrous rat: as the beast also itself
is of such force in the teeth that it will gnaw a hole through a thick
plank, or shere through a double billet in a night; it loveth also the
stillest rivers, and it is given to them by nature to go by flocks
unto the woods at hand, where they gather sticks wherewith to build
their nests, wherein their bodies lie dry above the water, although
they so provide most commonly that their tails may hang within the
same. It is also reported that their said tails are a delicate dish,
and their stones of such medicinal force that (as Vertomannus saith)
four men smelling unto them each after other did bleed at the nose
through their attractive force, proceeding from a vehement savour
wherewith they are endued. There is greatest plenty of them in Persia,
chiefly about Balascham, from whence they and their dried cods are
brought into all quarters of the world, though not without some
forgery by such as provide them. And of all these here remembered, as
the first sorts are plentiful in every wood and hedgerow, so these
latter, especially the otter (for, to say the truth, we have not many
beavers, but only in the Teisie in Wales) is not wanting or to seek in
many, but most, streams and rivers of this isle; but it shall suffice
in this sort to have named them, as I do finally the martern, a beast
of the chase, although for number I worthily doubt whether that of our
beavers or marterns may be thought to be the less.

Other pernicious beasts we have not, except you repute the great
plenty of red and fallow deer whose colours are oft garled white and
black, all white or all black, and store of conies amongst the hurtful
sort. Which although that of themselves they are not offensive at all,
yet their great numbers are thought to be very prejudicial, and
therefore justly reproved of many, as are in like sort our huge flocks
of sheep, whereon the greatest part of our soil is employed almost in
every place, and yet our mutton, wool, and felles never the better
cheap. The young males which our fallow deer do bring forth are
commonly named according to their several ages: for the first year it
is a fawn, the second a pricket, the third a sorel, the fourth a
soare, the fifth a buck of the first head, not bearing the name of a
buck till he be five years old: and from henceforth his age is
commonly known by his head or horns. Howbeit this notice of his years
is not so certain but that the best