Certes, if I may freely say
what I think, I suppose that these two kinds (I mean foxes and
badgers) are rather preserved by gentlemen to hunt and have pastime
withal at their own pleasures than otherwise suffered to live as not
able to be destroyed because of their great numbers. For such is the
scarcity of them here in England, in comparison of the plenty that is
to be seen in other countries, and so earnestly are the inhabitants
bent to root them out, that, except it had been to bear thus with the
recreations of their superiors in this behalf, it could not otherwise
have been chosen but that they should have been utterly destroyed by
many years agone.
I might here intreat largely of other vermin, as the polecat, the
miniver, the weasel, stote, fulmart, squirrel, fitchew, and such like,
which Cardan includeth under the word _Mustela_: also of the otter,
and likewise of the beaver, whose hinder feet and tail only are
supposed to be fish. Certes the tail of this beast is like unto a thin
whetstone, as the 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.
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