31 
A Lynx in the Tower . 
wolves, though they are as greedy as these. The nature of the lynx 
is never to look hack, hut he always runs and leaps forward. The 
meat he commonly or chiefly eats is wild cats; and as he most 
willingly feeds on them, so he always lyes in wait about their holes 
to catch them. The skins of them, as they are framed with light down, 
and rare spots, are sold very dear, especially such as are taken in the 
most sharp winter, for then their colour and virtue is best, but in 
summer they are far worse.” 
The fur of this animal was held in high estimation in 
England. In the inventory of the goods of the Duke of 
Richmond, 1527, occurs mention of a gown of crimson 
damask, furred with luzardes. 
The lynx was credited by ancient writers with such 
wonderful acuteness of vision that it could see through a 
stone wall. If, as Magnus asserts, its principal diet was 
wild cats, the powers of sight and agility possessed by 
the lynx must have been fully exercised. 
Topsell (p. 490) quotes from Dr. Caius a description 
of an individual of this species, which, at the time the 
latter wrote (1550), was in the Tower collection. 
“ In tbe top of bis eares there are placed some blacke haires, as it 
were a foretop or tuft. The colour of this beast in the outmost parts 
is red, in the innermost white, but sprinkled here with blacke spots 
and almost by rowes, and there with spots somewhat lighter then the 
other, all his haire being for the most part white all over all his 
body except the aforesaid spottes, as it is in certaine skinnes of young 
conies. And on both the sides of his nose there are foure spots set in 
order. ... He doth climbe wonderfully, so that what he may be able to 
do in that thinge, either in his cave or den, nature her selfe doth teach: 
he is a quicke-mooving creature, and cannot stand still in a place, so 
that except, by meer chance, the voice of a woodpecker in the basket 
of a certaine country man, who came then onely to see the lyone, had 
made him quiet and attentive, there had bene no hope of the portraiting 
out the picture of his body. He being present he was most quyet: 
but he going away, hee would never stande still: wherefore I was 
constrained to send my man after the countrey man to buy the birde, 
which beeing present, he stood very still until the busines was dis¬ 
patched and the worke absolutely performed. . . . Our country men 
call it luzarne, it is doubtfull whether we should call it leunce, 
