cockthrowing

Known to English contemporaries as a "bear garden," it was an arena that featured animal fights, most frequently with dogs sent in against bulls, bears, or each other, supplemented with cockfighting, cockthrowing, or other forms of what Samuel Pepys called "rude and nasty pleasure." (54) Such arranged animal contests had become part of court life in the reign of Vasilii III, grew increasingly popular under Ivan IV, and were a common royal amusement for Fedor Ivanovich.