CURIOUS CREATURES. 129 



other Goats follow, which the Hunter fearing to molest, 

 calls off his Dogs that many be not killed. 



." If he be taken in a string, he will sometime bite off 

 his own foot, and so get away. But, if there be no 

 way open he will faign himself dead, that being taken 

 out of the snare, he may run away. Moreover, when 

 a dog runs after him, and overtakes him, and would 

 bite him, he draws his bristly tail through the dog's 

 mouth, and so he deludes the dog till he can get into 

 the lurking places of the Woods. I saw also in the 

 Rocks of Noi~way a Fox with a huge tail, who brought 

 many Crabs out of the water, and then he ate them. 

 And that is no rare sight, when as no fish like Crabs 

 will stick to a bristly thing let down into the water, and 

 to dry fish, laid on the rocks to dry. They that are 

 troubled with the Gowt, are cured by laying the warm 

 skin of this beast about the part, and binding it on. 

 The fat, also, of the same creature, laid smeered upon 

 the ears or lims of a gowty person, heals him ; his 

 fat is good for all torments of the guts, and for all 

 pains, his brain often given to a child will preserve it 

 ever from the Falling-sicknesse. These and such-like 

 simple medicaments the North Country people observe." 



A portion of the above receives a curious corrobora- 

 tion from Mr. P. Robinson in his book, The Poets' 

 Beasts. Speaking of the Lynx, he says: "But it is not, 

 as is supposed, ' untamable.' The Gaekwar of Baroda 

 has a regular pack of trained lynxes, for stalking and 

 hunting pea-fowl, and other kinds of birds. I have, 

 myself, seen a tame lynx that had been taught to catch 

 crows no simple feat and its strategy was as diverting 

 as its agility amazing. It would lie down with the end 

 of a string in its mouth, the other end being fast to a 



