84 SOME EARLY ENGLISH NATURALISTS 



The weapons mentioned by Caius as used in hunting 

 are the cross-bow, the javelin and the arrow. ^ The net 

 was used in fowling in this way. The setter, w^hen 

 he found the game (partridges or quails), crouched and 

 lay down, showing the direction of the birds with his 

 foot; 2 then it was the business of the fowler to draw his 

 net over them. This done, the setter roused the birds, 

 which got entangled in the net. Ferrets were used 

 to drive rabbits from their burrows. 



We find a few dog-stories taken from books. Caius 

 quotes from Froissart the story of a greyhound belonging 

 to Richard IL, which greeted the Duke of Lancaster and 

 thereby gave a forecast of his master's fate ; he tells 

 also how Henry VII. ordered the mastiffs to be hanged 

 which had dared to attack the lion, the king of beasts. 



THOMAS MOUFET 

 1553-1604 



Insectorum sive minimonim animalium Theatrum : olim ab Edoardo Wot- 

 tono, Conrado Gesnero, Thomaque Pennio inchoatum : tandem Tho. Moufeti 

 Londinatis opera sumptibusque maximis concinnatum, auotum, perfectum, &c. 

 Fol. Lond. 1634. 



Moufet ^ was the son of a Scotch tradesman settled in 

 London. He studied medicine under Caius at Cam- 



1 Fifty years later (1621) Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy shows that bows, 

 arrows and javelins had then disappeared, the gun taking their place. 

 "Fowling is more troublesome, but all out as delightsome to some sorts of 

 men, be it with guns, lime, nets, glades, gins, strings, baits, pitfalls, pipes, 

 calls, stalking-horses, setting-dogs, coy-ducks, &c. or otherwise." Pt. II, 

 sect, ii, memb. 4. 



2 "Pedis indicio locum stationis avium prodit : unde canem indicem [pointer] 

 vocare placuit." Willughby's Ornithology, where the training of a setter is 

 described, after Markham and others, makes no mention of pointing with the 

 foot, but says that when the dog '* standeth still and waveth his tail, looking 

 forward as if he pointed at somewhat, be sure the Partridge is before him." 



3 The name is variously spelt, and is no doubt the same as Moffat. 



1 



