[Lepus tympanum pulsat.] Quod artificium in cane, animali domestico, mirum videri non debet, cum & lepus agreste animal, & saltare, & tympanum anterioribus pedibus numero pulsare tympanistarum more, & canem dente atque ungue petere, pedibusque crudeliter cædere, in Anglia visus est omnium admiratione, anno salutis nostræ 1564. which conning and artificiall indeuour in a dogge (being a creature domesticall or householde seruaunt brought vp at home with offalls of the trencher & fragments of victualls,) is not much to be maruailed at, seing that a Hare (being a wilde and skippishe beast) was seene in England to the astonishment of the beholders, in the yeare of our Lorde God, 1564, not onely dauncing in measure, but playing with his former feete vppon a tabberet, and obseruing iust number of strokes (as a practicioner in that arte) besides that nipping & pinching a dogge with his teeth and clawes, & cruelly thumping him with y^e force of his feete. Nec est vanum istud, eoque relatum lubentius, quòd operæ pretium putarem, nihil prætereundum esse, in quo naturæ spectanda sit providentia. This is no trumpery tale, nor trifling toye (as I imagine) and therefore not vnworthy to bee reported, for I recken it a requitall of my trauaile, not to drowne in the seas of silence any speciall thing, wherin the prouidence and effectuall working of nature is to be pondered. Of the Dogge called the water Spaniell, or finder, in Latine _Aquaticus seu Inquisitor_. [Aquaticus seu inquisitor.] Qui per aquas aucupatur propensione naturali accedente mediocri documento, major his est, & promisso naturaliter hirtus pilo. Ego tamen ab armis ad posteriores suffragines, caudamque extremam, ad te (Gesnere) detonsum pinxi, ut usus noster postulat, quo pilis nudus expeditior sit, & minus per natationes retardetur. That kinde of Dogge whose seruice is required in fowling vpon the water, partly through a naturall towardnesse, and partly by diligent teaching, is indued with that property. This sort is somewhat bigge, and of a measurable greatnesse, hauing long, rough, and curled heare, not obtayned by extraordinary trades, but giuen by natures appointment, yet neuerthelesse (friend _Gesner_) I have described and set him out in this maner, namely powlde and netted from the shoulders to the hindermost legges, and to the end of his tayle, which I did for vse and customs cause, that beyng as it were made somewhat bare and naked, by shearing of such superfluitie of heare, they might atchiue the more lightnesse, and swiftnesse, and be lesse hindered in swymming, so troublesome and needelesse a burthen being shaken of.