perswading themselves thereby that they received no small advantage in their Grapes The gall of a female Goat put into a vessel and set in the earth is said by Albertus to have a natural power to draw Goats unto it as though they received great commodity thereby Likewise if you would have white hairs to grow in any part of a Horse shave off the hair and anoint the place with a gall of a Goat so shall you have your desire The Sabaeans by reason of continual use of Myrrhe and Frankincense grow to a loathing of that savour for remedy of which annoyance they perfume their houses by burning storax in Goats-skins And thus much for the several parts of a Goat There were in ancient time three kindes of Heards-men which received dignity one above another the first were called Bucolici Neat-heard because they keep the greater Cattel the second were Opiliones Shepheards of their attendance upon Sheep the third last and lowest kinde were termed Aepoli and Caprarii that is Goat-heards or Keepers of Goats and such were the Locrensians who were called Ozolae because of their filthy smell for they had the most part of their conversation among other Beasts A Goat-heard or Keeper of these Cattel must be sharp stern hard laborious patient bold and chearful and such a one as can easily run over the Rocks through the Wilderness and among the bushes without fear or grief so that he must not follow his flock like other heards but go before them they must also be light and nimble to follow the wandering Goats that run away from their fellows and so bring them back again for Goats are nimble moveable and inconstant and therefore apt to depart away except they be restrained by the herd and his Dog Neither have Goats a Captain or Bell-bearer like unto Sheep whom they follow but every one is directed after his own will and herein appeareth the pride of this Beast that he scorneth to come behinde either Cattel or Sheep but always goeth before and also in their own herds among themselves the Buck goeth before the female for the reverence of his beard as Aelianus saith the labour of the Goat-herd must be to see his Cattel well fed abroad in the day time and well soulded at night the first rule therefore in this husbandry is to divide the flocks and not to put any great number of them together for herein they differ from Sheep who love to live together in multitudes as it were affecting society by which they thrive better and mourn not so much as when they are alone but Goats love singularity and may well be called Schismaticks among Cattel and therefore they thrive best lying together in small numbers otherwise in great flocks they are soon infected with the pestilence and therefore in France they care not to have Magnos Greges sed plures not great flocks but many The number of their flock ought not to exceed fifty whereupon Varro writeth this story of Gab 〈…〉 us a Roman Knight who had a field under the Suburbs containing a thousand Akers of pasture ground who seeing a poor Goat-herd bring his Goats every day to the City and received for their milk a peny a peece he being led with covetousness proponed to himself this gain that if he stored his said field with a thousand Milch-female-goats he also should receive for their milk a thousand pence a day whereupon he added action to his intent and filled his field with a thousand Goats but the event fell out otherways then he expected sor in short time the multitude insected one another and so he lost both milk and flesh whereby it is apparent that it is not safe to feed great flocks of these Cattel together In India in the Region Coitha the Inhabitants give their Milch-goats dryed fishes to eat but their ordinary food is leaves tender branches and boughs of trees and also bushes or brambles where-upon Virgil wrote in this manner Pascuntur verò silvas summa Lycaei Horrenfesque rubos amantes ardua dumos They love to feed on the Mountains better then in the Vallies and green Fields always striving to lick up the Ivie or green plants or to climbe upon trees cropping off with their teeth all manner wilde herbs and if they be restrained and enclosed in fields then they do the like to the plants that they finde there wherefore there was an ancient law among the Romans when a man let out his ground to farm he should always condition and except with the Farmer that he should not breed any Goat in his ground for their teeth are enemies to all tender plants their teeth are also exitiable to a tree and Pliny and Varro affirm that the Goat by licking the Olive-tree maketh it barren for which cause in ancient time a Goat was not sacrificed to Minerva to whom the Olive was sacred There is no creature that feedeth upon such diversity of meat as Goats for which cause they are elegantly brought in by Eupolis the old Poet bragging of their belly chear wherein they number up above five and twenty several things different in name nature and taste and for this cause Eustathius defended by strong argument against Disarius that men and cattel which feed upon divers things have less health then those Beasts which eat one kinde of fruit alone They love Tamerisk Aldern elm-Elm-tree Assaraback and a tree called Alaternus which never beareth fruit but only leaves also three-leaved-grass Ivie the herb Lada which groweth no where but in Arabia whereby it cometh to pass that many times the hair of Goats is found in the gumb called Ladanum for the peoples greedy desire of the gumb causeth them to wipe the juyce from the Goats beard For the increase of milk in them give them Cinquefoyl five days together before they drink or else binde Dittany to their bellies or as Lacuna translateth the words out of Alrieanus you may lay milk to their bellies belike by rubbing it thereupon The wilde Goats of Creet eat Dittany aforesaid against the strokes of Darts and Serapion avoucheth by the experience of Galen that Goats by licking the leaves of Tamarisk lose their gall and likewise that he saw them licking Serpents which had newly lost their skins and the event thereof was that their age never turned or changed into whiteness or other external signes thereof Also it is delivered by good observation that if they eat or drink out of vessels of Tamarisk they shall never have any Spleen if any one of them eat Sea-holly the residue of the flock stand still and will not go forward till the meat be out of his mouth The Grammarians say that 〈…〉 ara was killed by Bellerophon the son of Glaucus in the Mountain Lyoius and the reason hereof is that the Poets faigned Chimera to be composed of a Lyon a Dragon and a Goat and in that Mountain all those three were kept and fell for
the weaker against the sury of their persecutors being better able to fight then the foremost whom in natural love and policy they set farthest from the danger Mutiuc which had been thrice Consul affirmeth that he saw Elephants brought on shore at Puteoli in Italy they were caused to go out of the Ship backward all along the bridge that was made for them that so the sight of the Sea might terrifie them and cause them more willingly to come on land and that they might not be terrified with the length of the bridge from the continent Pliny and Solinus affirm that they will not go on shipboard untill their keeper by some intelligible signe of oath make promise unto them of their return back again They sometimes as hath been said fight one against another and when the weaker is overcome he is so much abased and cast down in minde that ever after he feareth the voice of the conquerour They are never so fierce violent or wilde but the sight of a Ram tameth and dismayeth them for they fear his horns for which cause the Egyptians picture an Elephant and a Ram to signifie a foolish King that runneth away for a fearfull sight in the field And not only a Ram but also the gruntling clamour or cry of Hogs by which means the Romans overthrew the Carthaginians and Pyrrhus which trusted overmuch to their Elephants When Antipater besieged the Megarians very straitly with many Elephants the Citizens took certain Swine and anointed them with pitch then set them on fire and turned them out among the Elephants who crying horribly by reason of the fire on their bodies so distempered the Elephants that all the wit of the Macedonians could not restrain them from madness fury and flying upon their own company only because of the cry of the Swine And to take away that fear from Elephants they bring up with them when they are tamed young Pigges and Swine ever since that time When Elephants are chased in hunting if the Lions see them they run from them like Hinde-calves from the Dogs of Hunters and yet Iphicrates sayeth that among the Hesperian or western Ethiopians Lions set upon the young Calves of Elephants and wound them but at the sight of the mothers which come with speed to them when they hear them cry the Lions run away and when the mothers finde their young ones imbrued in their own bloud they themselves are so inraged that they kill them and so retire from them after which time the Lions return and eat their flesh They will not indure the savour of a Mouse but refuse the meat which they have run over in the river Ganges of India there are blew Wormes of sixty cubits long having two armes these when the Elephants come to drink in that river take their trunks in their hands and pull them off There are Dragons among the Ethiopians which are thirty yards or paces long these have no name among the inhabitants but Elephant-killers And among the Indians also there is as an inbred and native hateful hostility between Dragons and Elephants for which cause the Dragons being not ignorant that the Elephants feed upon the fruits and leaves of green trees do secretly convey themselves into them or to the tops of rocks covering their hinder part with leaves and letting his head and fore part hang down like a rope on a suddain when the Elephant cometh to crop the top of the tree she leapeth into his face and diggeth out his eyes and because that revenge of malice is too little to satisfie a Serpent she twineth her gable like body about the throat of the amazed Elephant and so strangleth him to death Again they marke the footsteps of the Elephant when he goeth to feed and so with their tails net in and entangle his legs and feet when the Elephant perceiveth and feeleth them he putteth down his trunck to remove and untie their knots and gins then one of them thrusteth his poisoned stinging head into his Nostrils and so stops up his breath the other prick and gore his tender belly-parts Some again meet him and flie upon his eyes and pull them forth so that at the last he must yeeld to their rage and fall down upon them killing them in his death by his fall whom he could not resist or overcome being alive and this must be understood that forsomuch as Elephants go together by flocks and herds the subtil Dragons let the foremost passe and set upon the hindmost that so they may not be oppressed with multitude Also it is reported that the bloud of an Elephant is the coldest blood in the world and that Dragons in the scorching heat of Summer cannot get any thing to cool them except this bloud for which cause they hide themselves in rivers and brooks whither the Elephants come to drink and when he putteth down his trunck they take hold thereof and instantly in great numbers leap up unto his ear which is naked bare and without defence whereout they suck the blood of the Elephant untill he fall down dead and so they perish both together Of this blood cometh that ancient Cinnabaris made by commixture of the bloud of Elephants and Dragons both together which alone is able and nothing but it to make the best representation of blood in painting Some have corrupted it with Goats-blood and call it Milton and Mimum and Monocroma it hath a most rare and singular vertue against all poisons beside the unmatchable property aforesaid These Serpents or Dragons are bred in Taprobana in whose heads are many pretious stones with such naturall seals or figurative impressions as if they were framed by the hand of man for Podisippus and Tzetzes affirm that they have seen one of them taken out of a Dragons head having upon it the lively and artificial stampe of a Chariot Elephants are enemies to wilde Buls and the Rhinocerots for in the games of Pompey when an Elephant and a Rhinoceros were brought together the Rhinoceros ran instantly and whet his horn upon a stone and so prepared himself to fight striking most of all at the belly of the Elephant because he knew that it was the tenderest and most penetrable part of the body The Rhinoceros was as long as the Elephant but the legs thereof were much shorter and as the Rhinocerotes sharpen their horns upon the stones so do the Elephants their teeth upon trees the sharpness of either yeeldeth not to any steel Especially the Rhinocerot teareth and pricketh the legs of the Elephant They fight in the woods for no other cause but for the meat they live upon but if the Rhinocerot get not the advantage of the Elephants belly but set upon him in some other part of his body he is soon put to the worst by the sharpness of the Ivory tooth which pierceth through his more then buffe-hard skin not to be pierced with any dart with
attributeth this to her right foot The like is attributed to a Sea-calf and the fish Hyaena and therefore the old Magicians by reason of this exanimating property did not a little glory in these beasts as if they had been taught by them to exercise Diabolical and praestigious incantation whereby they deprived men of sense motion and reason They are great enemies to men and for this cause Solinus reporteth of them that by secret accustoming themselves to houses or yards where Carpenters or such Mechanicks work they learn to call their names and so will come being an hungred and call one of them with a distinct and articulate voice whereby he causeth the man many times to forsake his work and go to see the person calling him but the subtile Hyaena goeth further off and so by calling allureth him from help of company and afterward when she seeth time devoureth him and for this cause her proper Epithet is Aemula â—â—cis Voyce-counterfeiter There is also great hatred betwixt a Pardall and this Beast for if after death their skins be mingled together the hair falleth off from the Pardals skin but not from the Hyaenaes and therefore when the Egyptians describe a superiour man overcome by an inferiour they picture these two skins and so greatly are they afraid of Hyaenaes that they run from all beasts creatures and plaâ—es whereon any part of their skin is fastened And Aelianus saith that the Ibis bird which liveth upon Serpents is killed by the gall of an Hyaena He that will go safely through the mountains or places of this beasts abode Rasis and Allertus say that he must carry in his hand a root of Colloquintida It is also believed that if a man compasse his ground about with the skin of a Crocodile an Hyaena or a Sea-calf and hang it up in the gates or gaps thereof the fruits enclosed shall â—ot be molested with hail or lightning And for this cause Mariners were wont to cover the tops of their sails with the skins of this Beast or of the Sea-calf and Horns saith that a man clothed with this skin may passe without fear or danger through the middest of his enemies for which occasion the Egyptians do picture the skin of an Hyaena to signifie fearless audacity Neither have the Magicians any reason to ascribe this to any praestigious enchantment seeing that a Fig-tree also is never oppressed with hail nor lightning And the true cause thereof is assigned by the Philosophers to be the bitterness of it for the influence of the heavens hath no destructive operation upon bitter but upon sweet things and there is nothing sweet in a Fig tree but only the fruit Also Columella writeth that if a man put three bushels of â—eed grain into the â—kin of this Beast and afterward sow the same without all controversie it will arise with much encrease G 〈…〉 worn in an Hyaenaes skin seven dayes instead of an Amulet is very soveraign against the biting of mad dogs And likewise if a man hold the tongue of an Hyaena in his hand there 〈◊〉 Dog that dareth to seize upon him The skin of the forehead or the bloud of this Beast resisteth all kinde of Witchcraft and Incantation Likewise Pliny writeth that the hairs layed to Womens lips maketh them amorous And so great is the vanity of the Magicians that they are not ashamed to affirm that by the tooth of the upper jaw of this Beast on the right side bound unto a mans arme or any part thereof he shall never be molested with Dart or Arrow Likewise they say that by the genital of this beast and the Article of the back-bone which is called Atlantios with the skin cleaving unto it preserved in a House keepeth the family in continual concord and above all other if a man carry about him the smallest and extreme gut of his intrails he shall not only be delivered from the Tyrany of the higher powers but also foreknow the successe and event of his petitions and sutes in Law If his left foot and nails be bound up together in a Linnen bag and so fastened unto the right arme of a Man he shall never forget whatsoever he hath heard or knoweth And if he cut off the right foot with the left hand and wear the same whosoever seeth him shall fall in love with him besides the Beast Also the marrow of the right foot is profitable for a Woman that loveth not her Husband if it be put into her nostrils And with the powder of the left claw they which are anointed therewith it being first of all decocted in the bloud of a Weasil do fall into the hatred of all men And if the nails of any beast be found in his maw after he is Ilain it signifieth the death of some of his hunters And to conclude such is the folly of the Magiâ—ians that they believe the transmigration of souls not only out of one man into another but also of man into beasts And therefore they affirm that their men Symis and religious votaries departing life send their souls into Lions and the religious women into Hyaenaes The excrements or bones coming out of the excrements when it is killed are thought to have virtue in them against Magical incantations And Democritus writeth that in Cappadocia and Mesia by the eating of the hearb Therionarcha all wilde beasts fall into a deadly sleep and cannot be recovered but by the aspersion of the urine of this beast And thus much for the first kinde now followeth the second The Second kinde of HYAENA called Papio or Dabuh THis Beast aboundeth near Caesarea in quantity resembling a Fox but in wit and disposition Wolf the fashion is being gathered together for one of them to go before the flock 〈…〉 or howling and all the rest answering him with correspondent tune In hair it resembleth a 〈◊〉 and their voices are so shrill and sounding that although they be very remote and far off yet do men hear them as if they were hard by And when one of them is slain the residue flock about his carcase howling like as they made funeral lamentation for the dead When they grow to be very hungry by the constraint of famine they enter into Graves of men â—nd eat their dead bodies Yet is their flesh in Syria Damascus and Berâ—tus eaten by men It is â—alled also Randelos Abenâ—â—m Aldabha Dabha Dabah and Dhoboha which are derived from the He 〈…〉 ew word Deeb or Deeba Dabuh is the Arabian name and the Africans call him Lesâ—ph his feet and 〈…〉 gs are like to a mans neither is it hurtful to other Beasts being a base and simple creature The 〈…〉 olour of it is like a Bear and therefore I judge it to be Aâ—â—â—oâ—â—on which is ingendered of a Bear and 〈◊〉 Dog and they bark only in the night time They are exceedingly delighted with Musick such 〈◊〉 is
or warmth then in other whose leaves fall off and decay in the cold weather except in the roots of Birth And by reason of their multitude gathered together at the root of this tree it falleth out that their breath heateth the same and so preserveth the leaves from falling off Wherefore in ancient time the ignorant multitude seeing a Birch tree with green leaves in the Winter did call it our Ladies Tree or a holy tree attributing that greenness to miracle not knowing the former reason or secret in Nature Solinus reporteth of such a like Wood in a part of Africa where in all the Winter time the leaves of all the trees abide green the cause is as before recited for that the Serpents living at the roots of the trees in the earth do heat them with their breath Neither ought any man to wonder that they should so friendly live together especially in the Winter and cold time seeing that by experience in England we know that for warmth they will creep into bed-straw and about the legs of men in their sleep as may appear by this succeeding discourse of a true history done in England in the house of a worshipful Gentleman upon a servant of his whom I could name if it were needful He had a servant that grew very lame and feeble in his legs and thinking that he could never be warm in his bed did multiply his clothes and covered himself more and more but all in vain till at length he was not able to go about neither could any skill of Physitian or Chirurgeon finde out the cause It hapned on a day as his Master leaned at his Parlour window he saw a great Snake to slide along the house side and to creep into the chamber of this lame man then lying in his bed as I remember for he lay in a low chamber directly against the Parlour window aforesaid The Gentleman desirous to see the issue and what the Snake would do in the chamber followed and looked into the chamber by the window where he espyed the Snake to slide up into the bed-straw by some way open in the bottom of the bed which was of old boards Straightway his heart rising thereat he called two or three of his servants and told them what he had seen bidding them go take their Rapiers and kill the said Snake The serving men came first and removed the lame man as I remember and then the one of them turned up the bed and the other two the straw their master standing without at the hole whereinto the said Snake had entered into the chamber The bed was no sooner turned up and the Rapier thrust into the straw but there issued forth five or six great Snakes that were lodged therein Then the serving-men bestirring themselves soon dispatched them and cast them out of doors dead Afterward the lame Mans legs recovered and became as strong as ever they were whereby did evidently appear the coldness of these Snakes or Serpents which came close to his legs every night did so benum them as he could not go And thus for heat they pierce into the holes of chimneys yea into the tops of hills and houses much more into the bottoms and roots of trees When they perceive that Winter approacheth they finde out their resting places wherein they lie half dead four months together until the Spring sun again communicating her heat to all Creatures reviveth and as it were raiseth them up from death to life During which time of cold Winter as Seneca writeth Tuto tractari postifera Serpens potest non desunt tuno illi venena sed 〈◊〉 They may be safely handled without fear of harm not because they want poyson at that time but because they are drouzy and deadly astonished But there is a question whether when they be in this secresie or drouziness they awake not to eat or else their sleep be unto them in stead of food Olaus Magnus affirmeth of the Northern Serpents that they eat not at all but are nourished with sleep Cardan saith that they take some little food as appeareth by those which are carryed up and down in boxes to be seen and are fed with bran or cheasil But this may be answered that Serpents in boxes are not so cold as those in Woods and Deserts and therefore seeing cold keepeth them from eating the external heat of the box-house or humane body which beareth them about may be a cause that inclosed Serpents feed in Winter as well as in Summer and yet the Serpents which run wilde in the fields eat nothing at all during the time of their Chias or Ehiaus that is their lying hid Grevinus that learned man proponeth this question Si Serpentes calidi sunt qui fit ut integros trâ—t aut quatuor menses id est toto illo tempore quo delitescunt absque cibo vivunt If saith he Serpents be hot how cometh it to pass that they can live three or four moneths without all food that is all the time of their lying secret He maketh in my opinion a sufficient answer to this question which for me shall conclude the cause saying Doth it not fall out with Serpents as it doth with some women who being full of humor and thick phlegmatick matter have but a little and weak natural heat yet proportionable to the said humor do live a great time by reason thereof without food or nourishment And for this cause all the hoasts of Philosophers do define that Serpents do also abstain from eating a long season For Nature hath clothed them with a more solid skin and lined them with a more thick and substantial flesh to the intent that their natural heat should not easily vanish away and decay in their bodies but remain therein permanent for the feeding and preserving of life When they sleep they seem to sleep with open eyes which is elegantly described by Philes in these Greek verses Opos kathéude kai dokei palin blepein Ophis te kai ptox kaâ— thumou pleres león Epipetatai gar he chlamys ton ommaton Allou tinos Chitonos hapaloterou Phrorountos autois os dioptras task-óras Which may be Englished thus How can the Hare the Serpent and the Lion bold Both sleep and see together at one time Within their eye-lids a soft skin their sight doth fold Shilding their apples as glass doth weakened eyne The food of Serpents that is permitted them by God is the dust of the earth as may appear by that first and just sentence which GOD himself gave upon them for seducing our first Parents Ad 〈…〉 and Eve Gen. 3. 14. Because thou hast done this thing thou art accursed above all the Beasts of the field for thou shalt go upon thy belly and eat dust all the days of thy life And again Esay 65. 25. Dust shall be meâ—t to the Serpent And lest that we should think that this curse hath not taken hold upon the Serpent we may finde the
given this beast in Greek and Latin bv sundry authors do demonstratively shew the manifold conditions of this beast as that it is called a Plower Wilde an earth-tiller brazen-footed by reason of his hard hoofs Cerebrous more brain then wit horned stubborn horn-stiking hard rough untamed devourer of grasse yoak-bearer fearful overtamed drudges wry-faced flow and ill favoured with many other such notes of their nature ordination and condition There remain yet of this discourse of Oxen two other necessary Tractates the one natural and the other moral That which is natural contains the several uses of their particular parts and first for their flesh which is held singular for nourishment for which cause after their labour which bringeth leanness they use to put them by for sagination or as it is said in English for feeding which in all countries hath a several manner or custom Sotion affirmeth that if you give your Cattel when they come fresh from their pasture Cabbage leaves beaten small with some sharp Vinegar poured among them and afterward chaffe winowed in a sieve and mingled with Bran for five daies together it will much fatten and encrease their flesh and the sixth day ground Barly encreasing the quantity by little and little for six daies together Now the best time to feed them in the Winter is about the Cock crowing and afterward in the morning twilight and soon after that let them drink in the Summer let them have their first meat in the morning and their second service at noon and then drink after that second meat or eating and their third meat before evening again and so let them drink the second time It is also to be observed that their water in Winter time be warmed and in the Summer time colder And while they feed you must often wash the roof and sides of her mouth for therein will grow certain Wormes which will annoy the beast and hinder his eating and after the washing rub his tongue well with salt If therefore they be carefully regarded they will grow very fat especially if they be not over aged or very young at the time of their feeding for by reason of age their teeth grow loose and fall out and in youth they cannot exceed in fatness because of their growth above all Heifers and barren Kie will exceed in fatness for Varro affirmeth that he saw a field Mouse bring forth young ones in the fat of a Cow having eaten into her body she being alive the self same thing is reported of a Sow in Arcadia Kie will also grow fat when they are with Calf especially in the middest of that time The Turks use in their greatest feasts and Mariages to roast or seethe an Ox whole putting in the Oxes belly a whole Sow and in the Sowes belly a Goose and in the Goofes belly an Egge to note forth their plenty in great and small things but the best flesh is of a young Ox and the worst of an old one for it begetteth an ill juyce or concoction especially if they which eat it be troubled with a Cough or rheumy fleam or if the party be in a Consumption or for a woman that hath ulcers in her belly the tongue of an Ox or Cow salted and slit asunder is accounted a very delicate dish which the Priests of Mercury said did belong to them because they were the servants of speach and howsoever in all sacrifices the beasts tongue was refused as a profane member yet these Priests made choise thereof under colour of sacrifice to feed their dainty stomachs The horns of Oxen by art of man are made very flexible and straight whereof are made Combes hafts for knives and the ancients have used them for cups to drink in and for this cause was Bacchus painted with horns and Crater was taken for a cup which is derived of Kera a horn In like manner the first Trumpets were made of horns as Virgil alludeth unto this sentence Rauco strepuerunt corâ—ua cantu and now adaies it is become familiar for the cariage of Gunpowder in war It is reported by some husbandmen that if seed be cast into the earth out of an Oxes horn called in old time Cerasbola by reason of a certain coldness it will never spring up well out of the earth at the least not so well as when it is sowed with the hand of man Their skin is used for shooes Garments and Gum because of a spongy matter therein contained also to make Gunpowder and it is used in navigation when a shot hath pierced the sides of the ship presently they clapa raw Ox hide to the mouth of the breach which instantly keepeth the Water from entring in likewise they were wont to make bucklers or shieldes or hides of Oxen and Bugils and the seven-folded or doubled shield of Ajax was nothing else but a shield made of an Ox hide so many times layed one piece upon another which caused Homer to call it Sacos heptabreton Of the teeth of Oxen I know no other use but scraping and making paper smooth with them their gall being sprinkled among seed which is to be sowen maketh it come up quickly and killeth field-mise that tast of it and it is the bane or poison of those creatures so that they will not come neer to it no not in bread if they discern it and birds if they eat corn touched with an Oxes gall put into hot water first of all and the lees of wine they wax thereby astonished likewise Emmets will not come upon those places where there remaineth any savour of this gall and for this cause they anoint herewith the roots of trees The dung of Oxen is beneficial to Bees if the hive be anointed therewith for it killeth Spiders Gnats and drone-bees and if good heed be not taken it will work the like effect upon the Bees themselves for this cause they use to smother or burn this kind of dung under the mouthes of the Hives in the spring time which so displayeth and disperseth all the little enemy-bees in Bee-hives that they never breed again There is a proverb of the stable of Augea which Augea was so rich in Cattel ahat he defiled the Countrey with their dung whereupon that proverb grew when Hercules came unto him he promised him a part of his Countrey to purge that stable which was not cleansed by the yearly labour of 3000 Oxen but Hercules undertaking the labour turned a River upon it and so cleansed all When Augea saw that his stable was purged by art and not by labour he denied the reward and because Phyleus his eldest Son reproved him for not regarding a man so well deserving he cast him out of his family for ever The manifold use of the members of Oxen and Kie in medicine now remaineth to be briefly touched The horn beaten into powder cureth the Cough especially the tips or point of the horn which is also received against the
more hard covered with a rough skin which the Hunters for honours sake call a Velvet head and as that skin dryeth they daily try the strength of their new head upon trees which not only scrapeth off the roughness but by the pain they feel in rubbing them they are taught how long to forbear the company of their fellows for at last when in their chafing or fretting of their new horn against the tree they can no more feel any smart or grief in them they take it for high time to forsake their solitary dwellings and return again to their former condition like one that is supplyed with new arms after the losing of his old The tender and new horns the Germans call Morchi and Kolben these being taken from the Beast are accounted among great Noble men a delicate dish of meat Cyprius is said to have a Hart with four horns which was called Nicocreos and by him dedicated to Apollo which I do therefore remember in this place because it is seldom seen that an Hart can bear naturally above two horns Authors do generally affirm that when a Hart hath lost his horns he hideth them in some secret places because he understandeth some secret vertues are contained in them which mankinde seeketh for and therefore he either envying the good of other or fearing lest they bewray him hereafter to Hunters taketh the best care and providence his discretion can afford that they never come to the handling of men When the people asked Apollo what they should do with Procles their Tyrant the Oracle answered that he should go to that place where Harts cast their borns whereby it was gathered that he should be slain and buryed in the earth and this caused the Proverb Vbi cervi abjiciunt cornua to signifie a desperate business yet could it not be agreed whether the Hart make more account of his right horn or his left and therefore Aristotle affirmeth that the left horn is never found and Pliny that the right horn is never found This difference may be reconciled with ease for right and left are so tearmed for three causes or three manner of ways First properly in all creatures according to the beginning of motion Secondly for similitude or likeness as the right and left side of Images statues c. Thirdly improperly when the right side of one thing standeth against the left side of another being opposite as when two men stand face to face and by this reason may the left horn of Aristotle and the right horn of Pliny signifie all one thing but we know that the horns of Harts are found yearly both in Fields and Woods The wilde Harts of Sarmatia neer Turkie have the greatest horns of all other for it hath been proved that one pair of them have weighed forty pounds Troy weight and above and there they lose their horns in March neither do they fall off together but first one and then the other and after the first falling it is manifest that a certain worm getteth on them and maketh upon them many circles and little furrows whereby the root or basis being weakened the horn groweth very white in that place and yet not without some appearance of blood remaining which cleaveth to it from the first falling off for when the head of this Beast is disarmed there issueth blood from the skull and in appearance the naked place is like a wound and yet it is wonderful to mark that within three days the same is heald and filled with the blood which congealeth in that place first to a sinew and afterward to a hard bone so as in August at the farthest the horns are perfect and therefore the Egyptians to describe a long-lived man picture a Hart losing his horns every year and new coming in their place If any man be desirous to know the reasons why only Beasts of this kinde lose their horns in this manner I will not spare my pains to set down the best which Authors have rendred for this wonder of nature First because of the matter whereof they consist for it is dry and earthy like the substance of green leaves which fall off yearly wanting glewing or holding moisture to continue them and for this cause the horn of a Hart cannot be bent Secondly from the place they grow upon for they are not rooted upon the skull but only within the skin Thirdly from their efficient cause for they are hardned both with the heat of Summer and cold of Winter by means whereof the pores to receive their nourishment liquor are utterly shut up and stopped so as of necessity their native heat dyeth which falleth not out in other Beasts whose horns are for the most part hollow and fitted for longer continuance but these are of lesser and the new bunches swelling up toward the Spring do thrust off the old horns being holp either by the boughes of trees by the weight of the horns or by the willing excussion of the beast that beareth them Democritus and other as Gillius and Aelianus give other reasons but because they seem to be far fetched I will omit them Yet by the way it is to be noted that if a Hart be libbed or gelded when he is young he never beareth horns or very small ones and if his horns be upon him at the time of gelding they never waxe less or greater or fall off The Hindes never bear horns at all as some have affirmed but I rather believe Caesar Maximilian and Zenodotus who affirm upon their knowledge that Hindes in some Countries have horns like the males as likewise it is observed in the Elephants of India and for this cause the Poets expressed the Hinde which nourished Telephus with horns and that which Hercules took with golden horns and it is for certain that in Ethiopia and Lybia both sexes have horns The face of this beast is fleshy his nostrils flat and his neck very long his ears some greater and some smaller but in the Mount Elaphus and Hellespont they are slit It is observed that when a Hart pricketh up his ears he windeth sharp very far and sure and discovereth all treachery against him but if they hang down and wag he perceiveth no danger By their teeth is their age discerned and they have four on both sides wherewith they grinde their meat and besides two other much greater in the male then in the female and they bend downward to bite withall All these beasts have worms in their heads bred underneath their tongue in a hollow place where the neck-bone is joyned to the head which are not bigger then such as flyes blow in rotten flesh They are ingendered together one with another and they are in number twenty as some would have it but I was given to understand by one that saw a head of this Beast dissected wherein were many more Worms and not contained in one place but spread all over the
have wearyed him and broken his untameable nature Then doth the rider leap upon the wearyed and tyred Elephant and with a sharp pointed Sickle doth govern him after the tame one and so in short space he groweth gentle And some of them when the rider alighteth from their backs grow wilde and fierce again for which cause they binde their forelegs with strong bands and by this means they take both great and small old and young ones but as the old ones are more wilde and obstinate and so difficult to be taken so the younger keep so much with the elder that a like impossibility or difficulty interposeth itself from apprehending them In the Caspian lake there are certain fishes called Oxyrineh out of whom is made such a firme glew that it will not be dissolved in ten dayes after it hath taken hold for which cause they use it in the taking of Elephants There are in the Island Zeira many Elephants whom they take on this manner In the Mountains they make certain doysters in the earth having two great trees standing at the mouth of the cloysters and in those trees they hangup a great parcul 〈…〉 gate within that cloyster they place a tame female Elephant at the time of their usual copulation the wilde Elephants do speedily wind her and make to her and so at the last having found the way betwixt the two trees enter into her sometime twenty and sometime thirty at a time then are there two men in the said trees which cut the rope whereby the gate hangeth so it falleth down and includeth the Elephants where they suffer them alone for six or seven dayes without meat whereby they are so infeebled and famished that they are not able to stand upon their legs Then two or three strong men enter in among them and with great slaves and clubs belabour and â—udgel them till by that means they grow tame and gentle and although an Elephant be a monstrous great beast and very subtil yet by these and such like means do the inhabitants of India and Ethiopia take many of them with a very small labour to their great advantage Against these sleights of men may be oposed the subtil and cautelous evasions of the beast avoiding all the footsteps of men if they smell them upon any herb or leaf and for their fight with the Hunters they observe this order First of all they set them foremost which have the least teeth that so they may not be afraid of combate and when they are weary by breaking down of trees they escape and flie away But for their hunting they know that they are not hunted in India for no other cause then for their teeth and therefore to discourage the Hunters they set them which have the worst teeth before and reserve the strongest for the second encounter for their wisdom or natural discretion is herein to be admired that they will so dispose themselves in all their battails when they are in chase that ever they fight by course and inclose the youngest from perill so that lying under the belly of their Dams they can scarce be seen and when one of them flyeth they all flie away to their usual resting places striving which of them shall go foremost And if at any time they come to a wide and deep Ditch which they cannot passe over without a bridge then one of them descendeth and goeth down into the Ditch and standeth transverse or crosse the same by his great body filling up the empty parts and the residue passe over upon his back as upon a bridge Afterward when they are all over they tarry and help their fellow out of the Ditch or Trench again by this sleight or devise one of them putteth down to him his leg and the other in the Ditch windeth his trunck about the same the residue standers by cast in bundles of sprigs with their mouthes which the Elephant warily and speedily putteth under his feet and so raiseth himself out of the Trench again and departeth with his fellowes But if they fall in and cannot finde any help or means to come forth they lay aside their natural wilde disposition and are contented to take meat and drink at the hands of men whose presence before they abhorred and being delivered they think no more upon their former condition but in forgetfulness thereof remain obedient to their deliverers Being thus taken as it hath been said it is also expedient to express by what art and means they are cicurattd and tamed First of all therefore when they are taken they are fastened to some Tree or Pillar in the earth so as they can neither kick backward nor leap forward and there hunger thirst and famine like two most strong and forcible Riders abate their natural wildeness strength fear and hatred of men Afterward when their keepers perceive by their dejection of minde that they begin to be mollified and altered then they give unto them meat out of their hands upon whom the beast doth cast a far more favorable and cheerful eye considering their own bondage and so at the last necessity frameth them unto a contented and tractable course and inclination But the Indians by great labour and industry take their young Calves at their watering places and so lead them away inticing them by many allurements of meat to love and obey them so as they grow to understand the Indian language but the elder Indian Elephants do very hardly and seldom grow tame because of their remembrance of their former liberty by any bands and oppression nevertheless by instrumental musick joyned with some of their Countrey songs and ditties they abate their fierceness and bring down their high untractable stomachs so as without all bands they remain quiet peaceable and obedient taking their meat which is layed before them Pliny and Solinus prescribe the juyce of Barly to be given to them for their mitification whereunto also agreeth Dioscorides calling that kind of drink Zythus and the reason hereof is because of the tart sharpness in Barly water if it stand a little while and therefore also they prescribe Vinegar and ashes to rub the beasts mouth for it hath power in it to pierce stones all sharp things penetrate deep into his flesh and alter his nature the invention whereof is attributed to Democritus Being thus tamed they grow into civill and familiar uses for Caesar ascended into the Capitol betwixt four hundred Elephants carrying at either side burning Torches and Heliogabalus brought four Waggons drawn with Elephants in Vaticanum and men commonly ride upon them for Apâ—llonius saw neer the River Indus a Boy of thirteen year old riding alone upon an Elephant spurring and pricking him as freely as any man will do a lean horse They are taught to bend one of their hinder legs to take up the Rider who also must receive help from some other present standers by or else it is
with a false appearance as the flattering love of Harlots doe simple mindes by fained protestations Of the GVLON THis Beast was not known by the Ancients but hath been since discovered in the Northern parts of the World and because of the great voracity thereof it is called Gulo that is a devourer in imitation of the Germans who call such devouring creatures Vilsiuss and the Swedians Gerff in Lituania and Muscovia it is called Rossomokal It is thought to be engendered by a Hyaena and a Lioness for in quality it resembleth a Hiaena and it is the same which is called Crocuta it is a devouring and an unprofitable creature having sharper teeth then other creatures Some think it is derived of a Wolf and a Dog for it is about the bigness of a Dog it hath the face of a Cat the body and tail of a Fox being black of colour his feet and nails be most sharp his skin rusty the hair very sharp and it feedeth upon dead carkases When it hath found a dead carkass he eateth thereof so violently that his belly standeth out like a bell then he seeketh for some narrow passage betwixt two trees and there draweth through his body by pressing whereof he driveth out the meat which he had eaten and being so emptied returneth and devoureth as much as he did before and goeth again and emptieth himself as in former manner and so continueth eating and emptying till all be eaten It may be that God hath ordained such a creature in those Countries to express the abominable gluttony of the men of that Countrey that they may know their true deformed nature and lively ugly figure represented in this Monster eatingbeast for it is the fashion of the Noble men in those parts to sit from noon till midnight eating and drinking and never rise from the table but to disgorge their stomachs or ease their bellies and then return with refreshed appetites to ingurgitate and consume more of Gods creatures wherein they grow to such a heighth of beastliness that they lose both sense and reason and know no difference between head and tail Such they are in Muscovia in Lituania and most shameful of all in Tartaria These things are reported by Olaus Magnus and Mathias Michou But I would to God that this same more then beastly intemperate gluttony had been circumscribed and confined within the limits of those unchristian or heretical-apostatical countries and had not spread it self and infected our more civil and Christian parts of the World so should not Nobility Society Amity good fellowship neighbourhood and honesty be ever placed upon drunken or gluttonous companions or any man be commended for bibbing and sucking in Wine and Beer like a Swine When in the mean season no spark of grace or Christianity appeareth in them which notwithstanding they take upon them being herein worse then Beasts who still reserve the notes of their nature and preserve their lives but these lose the markes of humanity reason memory and sense with the conditions of their families applying themselves to consume both patrimony and pence in this voracity and forget the Badges of Christians offering sacrifice to nothing but their bellies The Church forsaketh them the spirit accurseth them the civil world abhorreth them the Lord condemneth them the Devil expecteth them and the fire of Hell it self is prepared for them and all such devourers of Gods good creature To help their digestion for although the Hiena and Gulon and some other monsters are subject to this gluttony yet are there many creatures more in the world who although they be Beasts and lack reason yet can they not by any famine stripes or provocations be drawn to exceed their natural appetites or measure in eating or drinking There are of these Beasts two kindes distinguished by colour one black and the other like a Wolf they seldom kill a Man or any live Beasts but feed upon carrion and dead carkasses as is before said yet sometimes when they are hungry they prey upon Beasts as Horses and such like and then they subtilly ascend up into a tree and when they see a Beast under the same they leap down upon him and destroy him A Bear is afraid to meet them and unable to match them by reason of their sharp teeth This Beast is tamed and nourished in the Courts of Princes for no other cause then for an example of incredible voracity When he hath filled his belly if he can finde no trees growing so near together as by sliding betwixt them he may expel his excrements then taketh he an Alder-tree and with his fore-feet rendeth the same asunder and passeth through the midst of it for the cause aforesaid When they are wilde men kill them with bows and gins for no other cause than for their skins which are precious and profitable for they are white spotted changeably interlined like divers flowers for which cause the greatest Princes and richest Nobles use them in garments in the Winter time such are the Kings of Polonia Sweveland Goatland and the Princes of Germany neither is their any skin which will sooner take a colour or more constantly retain it The outward appearance of the said skin is like to a damaskt garment and besides this outward part there is no other memorable thing worthy observation in this ravenous Beast and therefore in Germany it is called a four-footed Vulture Of the GORGON or strange Lybian Beast AMong the manifold and divers sorts of Beasts which are bred in Africk it is thought that the Gorgon is brought forth in that Countrey It is a fearful and terrible beast to behold it it hath high and thick eye-lids eyes not very great but much like an Oxes or Bugils but all flery-bloudy which neither look directly forward nor yet upwards but continually down to the earth and therefore are called in Greek Catobleponta From the crown of their head down to their nose they have a long hanging mane which make them to look fearfully It eateth deadly and poysonful herbs and if at any time he see a Bull or other creature whereof he is afraid he presently causeth his mane to stand upright and being so lifted up opening his lips and gaping wide sendeth forth of his throat a certain sharp and horrible breath which infecteth and poysoneth the air above his head so that all living creatures which draw in the breath of that air are grievously afflicted thereby losing both voyce and sight they fall into lethal and deadly Convulsions It is bred in Hesperia and Lybia The Poets have a fiction that the Gorgones were the daughters of Midusa and Phoroynis and are called Stringo and by Hesiodus Sthenp and Euryale inhabiting the Gorgadian Islands in the Aethiopick Ocean over against the gardens of Hesperia Medusa is said to have the hairs of her head to be living Serpents against whom Perseus fought and cut off her head for which cause he was placed in
came gaping at him to devour him having wrapped his arme in his linnen garment held him fast by the tongue untill he stopped his breath and slew him for which cause he was ever afterwards the more loved and honored of Alexander having at the time of his death the command of all his treasure In like sort I will not be afraid to handle this Lion and to look into him both dead and alive for the expressing of so much of his nature as I can probably gather out of any good writer First of all therefore to begin with his several names almost all the Nations of Europe do follow the Greeks in the nomination of this Beast for they call him Leon the Latines Leo the Italians Leone the French and English Lion the Germans and Illyrians Lew the reason of the Greek name Leon is taken â—ara to leussein from the excellency of his sight or from Laoo signifying to see and Alaos signifyeth blinde for indeed there is no creature of the quantity of a Lion that hath such an admirable eye-sight The Lionesse called in Greek Leaena which word the Latines follow from whence also they derive Lea for a Lionesse according to this Verse of Lucretius Irritata Leae jaciebant corpora saltu The Hebrews have for this Beast male and female and their young ones divers names and first of all for the male Lion in Deut 33. they have Ari and Atieh where the Caldeans translate it Ariavan the Arabians Asad the Persians Gehad and plurally in Hebrew Araiius Araâ—ot Araâ—th as in the first of Zeph. Araoth Scbojanim roaring Lions and from hence comes Ariel signifying valiant and strong to be the name of a Prince and Isai 20. Ezek. 43. it is taken for the Alcar of Burnt-offerings because the fire that came down from heayen did continually lie upon that Altar like a Lion in his den or else because the fashion of the temple was like the proportion of the Lion the Assyrians call a Lionesse Arioth the Hebrews also call the male Lion Lâ—bi and the female Lebia and they distinguish Ari and Labi making Ari to signifie a little Lion and Labi a great one and in Num. 23. in this verse containing one of Gods promises to the people of Israel for victory against their enemies Behold my people shall arise like Labi and be lifted up like Ari there the Caldee translation rendereth Labi Leta the Arabian Jebu the Persians Seher and Munster saith that Labi is an old Lion In Job 38 Lebaim signifieth Lions and in Psal 57. Lebaâ—â— signifieth Lionesses In the Prophet Nahum the 2. Leisch is by the Hebrews translated a Lion and the same word Isa the 30. is by the Caldees translated a Lions whelpe and in the aforesaid place of the Prophet Nihum you shall finde Arieb for a Lion for a Lionesse Cephirim for little Lions 〈◊〉 and Gur for a Lions whelp all contained under one period The 〈◊〉 call a Lion at this day Sebey And thus much for the name In the next place we are to consider the kinds of Lions and those are according to Aristotle two the first of a lesse and well compacted body which have curled manes being therefore called Acro-Leonies and this is more sluggish and fearful then the other The second kinde of Lion hath a longer body and a deeper loose hanging mane these are more noble generous and couragious against all kinds of wounds And when I speak of manes it must be remembred that all the male Lions are maned but the females are not so neither the Leopards which are begotten by the adultery of the Lionesse for from the Lion there are many Beasts which receive procreation as the Leopard or Panther There is a beast called Leontophonus a little creature in Syria and is bred no where else but where Lions are generated Of whose flesh if the Lion taste he loseth that Princely power which beareth rule among four-footed beasts and presently dyeth for which cause they which lie in waite to kill Lions take the body of this Leontophonus which may well be Englished Lion-queller and burneth it to ashes afterwards casting those ashes upon flesh whereof if the Lion taste she presently dyeth so great is the poison taken out of this beast for the destruction of Lions for which cause the Lion doth not undeservedly hate it and when she findeth it although she dare not touch it with her teeth yet she teareth it in pieces with her claws The urine also of this beast sprinkled upon a Lion doth wonderfully harm him if it doth not destroy him They are deceived that take this Lion-queller to be a kinde of Worm or reptile creature for there is none of them that render urine but this excrement is meerly proper to four-footed living-beasts And thus much I thought good to say of this beast in this place which I have collected out of Aristotle Pliny Solinus and other Authors aforesaid although his proper place be afterward among the Lions enemies The Chimaera is also faigned to be compounded of a Lion a Goat and a Dragon according to this Verse Prima Leo postrema Draco media ipsa Chimaera There be also many Fishes in the great Sea about the Isle Taprobane having the heads of Lions Panthers Rams and other beasts The Tygers of Prasta are also engendred of Lions and are twice so big as they There are also Lions in India called Formicae about the bigness of Egyptian Wolves Camalopardales have their hinder parts like Lions The Mantichora hath the body of a Lion The Leucrocuta the neck tail and breast like a Lion and there is an allogorical thing cald Daemonium Leoninum a Lion Devil which by Bellunensis is interpreted to be an allegory signifying the mingling together reasonable understanding with malicious hurtful actions It is reported also by Aelianus that in the Island of Cheos a Sheep of the flock of Nicippus contrary to the nature of those beasts in stead of a Lamb brought forth a Lion which monstrous prodigy was seen and considered of many whereof divers gave their opinions what it did portend namely that Nicippus of a private man should effect superiority and become a Tyrant which shortly after came to passe for he ruled all by force and violence not with fraud or mercy for Fraus saith Cicero quasi Vulpeculae vis Leonis esse videtur that is Fraud is the property of a Foâ— and violence of a Lion It is reported that Meles the first King of Sardis did beget of his Concubine a Lion and the Sooth-sayers told him that on what side soever of the City he should lead that Lion it should remain inexpugnable and never be taken by any man whereupon Meles led him about every tower and rampier of the City which he thought was weakest except only one tower standing towards the River Tmolus because he thought that side was invincible and could never by any force be
left in them so fareth it with thee O Origen for thou art blinded with the Graecians doctrine and dost vomit out that poyson into their hearts which do believe thee that thou art made unto them a venemous meat whereby thou dost wrong others as thou hast been wronged thy self Py which it is manifest that Myoxus is neither a Toad nor a Frog but the Dormouse And the charm which is made for the Asses urine as we have shewed already in his story Gallus bibit non meiit Myoxus meiit non bibit The Cock drinketh and maketh not water the Dormouse maketh water and never drinketh But whether it be true or no that she never drinketh I dare not affirm But this is certain that she drinketh but very seldom and it ought to be no wonder that she should make water for tame Conies as long as they can feed upon green herbs do render abundance of urine and yet never drink The Graecians also do call this Beast Elayos although that word do likewise signifie a Squirrel In Maesia a Wood of Italy there is never found Dormouse except at the time of their littering They are bigger in quantity then a Squirrel the colour variable sometimes black some-times grisled sometimes yellow on the back but alwayes a white belly having a short hair and a thinner skin then the Pontique Mouse They are also to be found in Helvetia about Clarona It is a biting and an angry Beast and therefore seldom taken alive The beak or snowt is long the ears short and pricked the tail short and not very hairy at the end the middle of the belly swelleth down betwixt the breast and the loins which are more narrow and trussed up together they are always very fat and for that cause they are called Lardironi Buck-mast is very acceptable meat unto them and doth greatly fatten them they are much delighted with Walnuts they climbe trees and eat Apples according to some but Albertus saith more truly that they are more delighted with the juyce then with the Apple For it hath been oftentimes found that under Apple-trees they have opened much fruit and taken out of it nothing but the kernels for such is their wit and policy that having gathered an Apple they presently put it in the twist of a tree betwixt boughs and so by sitting upon the uppermost bough press it asunder They also grow fat by this means In ancient time they were wont to keep them in coops or tuns and also in Gardens paled about with board where there are Beeches or Walnut trees growing and in some places they have a kinde of earthen pot wherein they put them with Walnuts Buckmast and Chesnuts And furthermore it must be be observed that they must be placed in rooms convenient for them to breed young ones their water must be very thin because they use not to drink much and they also love dry places Titus Pompeius as Varro saith did nourish a great many of them enclosed and so also Herpinus in his Park in Gallia It is a Beast well said to be Animal Semiferum a creature half wilde for if you set for them hutches and nourish them in Warrens together it is observed that they never assemble but such as are bred in those places And if strangers come among them which are separated from them either by a Mountain or by a River they descry them and fight with them to death They nourish their parents in their old age with singular piety We have shewed already how they are destroyed by the Viper and it is certain that all Serpents lie in wait for them Their old age doth end every Winter They are exceeding sleepy and therefore Martial saith Somniculosos illi porrigit glires They grow fat by sleeping and therefore Ausonius hath an elegant verse Dic cessante cibo somno quis opimior est glis Because it draweth the hinder-legs after it like a Hare it is called Animal tractile for it goeth by jumps and little leaps In the Winter time they are taken in deep ditches that are made in the Woods covered over with small sticks straw and earth which the Countreymen devise to take them when they are asleep At other times they leap from tree to tree like Squirrels and that they are killed with Arrows as they go from bough to bough especially in hollow trees for when the Hunters finde their haunt wherein they lodge they stop the hole in the absence of the Dormouse and watch her turn back again the silly Beast finding her passage closed is busied hand and foot to open it for entrance and in the mean season cometh the Hunter behinde her and killeth her In Tellinâ— they are taken by this means The Countrey men going into the fields carry in their hands burning Torches in the right time which when the silly Beast perceiveth with admiration thereof flocketh to the lights whereunto when they were come they were so dazled with the brightness that they were stark blinde and might so be taken with mens hands The use of them being taken was to eat their flesh for in Rhetia at this day they salt it and eat it because it is sweet and fat like Swines flesh Ammianus Marcellinus wondereth at the delicacy of his age because when they were at their Tables they called for ballances to weigh their fish and the members of the Dormouse which was not done saith he without any dislike of some present and things not heretofore used are now commended daily Apitius also prescribeth the muscles and flesh inclosed in them taken out of every member of a Dormouse beaten with Pepper Nut kernels Parsenips and Butter stuffed all together into the belly of a Dormouse and sewed up with thread and so baked in an Oven or sod in a Kettle to be an excellent and delicate dish And in Italy at this day they eat Dormice saith Coelius yet there were ancient laws among the Romans called Leges censoriae whereby they were forbidden to eat Dormice strange birds Shel-fish the necks of Beasts and divers such other things And thus much shall suffice for the description of the Dormouse The Medicines of the Dormouse Dormice being taken in meat do much profit against the Bulimon The powder of Dormice mixed with Oyl doth heal those which are scalded with any hot liquor A live Dormouse doth presently take away all Warts being bound thereupon Dormice and Field mice being burnt and their dust mingled with Hony will profit those which desire the clearness of the eyes if they do take thereof some small quantity every morning The powder of a Dormouse or field Mouse rubbed upon the eyes helpeth the aforesaid disease A Dormouse being flead roasted and anointed with Oyl and Salt being given in meat is an excellent cure for those that are short winded The same also doth very effectually heal those that spit out filthy matter or corruption Powder of Dormice
he rubbeth himself upon stones rocks and trees a great while together for it delighteth him whereby the stones grow white through his rubbing and therefore in time he weareth the bag asunder making issue unto it for the corruptible matter to come forth which presently runneth out upon the sores no otherwise then if it had been lanced Then the wound groweth to be whole again and the Beast departeth until the like exsuperance of bloud come into the same place again For every year this happeneth them The Inhabitants of the Countrey know all the Hunters of these wilde Beasts and therefore note them where they empty their bellies For the humor so pressed out as before is declared through the heat of the Sun congealeth and dryeth upon the stone growing more commendable and pleasant through the Suns heat Then come the Inhabitants and in little bottles made of the skins of these Beasts which before they have killed and so put the musk into them This they sell for a great price because it is thought and that worthily to be a gift fit for a King But if this Musk be taken out of the creature by violence then will he bring forth no more yet express it by his own natural art he beareth again and again The greatest cause of this humor is the sweetness of his food and the air wherein they are bred therefore if one of them be brought into this part of the world with Musk in his cod it will grow to ripeness in a temperate air but if it be brought without Musk in the cod then it will never yeeld any among us and besides that it liveth but a little while And therefore my opinion is that this excremental humour is unto it like a menstruous purgation for the want whereof it dyeth speedily Every part of this Beast is called Musk which cometh forth of his ulcerous issue for although the other parts smell sweet yet we will shew afterwards more at large that it is not of themselves but by reason of this humor The pretiousness of this thing deserveth a further treatise for thy better direction and instruction of the knowledge hereof both for the choise of that which is best and for the avoiding and putting away of that which is adulterate At Venice at this day it is sold in the cods and the Indian Musk is better then the African The brown is always better then the black except it be of Catha for that of Catha is black and best of all There is some that is yellowish or betwixt red and yellow after the very same colour of Spikenard this also is of the best sort because the Beasts that render it do feed upon Spikenard Therefore this is good to be chosen because it cannot be adulterated and besides the tast of it is bitter and assoon as ever it is tasted it presently ascendeth to the brain where it remaineth very fragrant without resistance and is not easily dissolved It is not bright within but muddy having broad grains and equal throughout like the wood of Baulm But according to the Regions they chuse Musk in this sort Of the Indian Musk that of the Region of Sceni called Antebeuus they set in the first place and next unto it the Beasts of the Sea side The Musk of Cubit is known by the thin bladder of the Beast wherein it is contained but that of Gergeri is less Aromatical and more thick The Musk of Caram is in the middle place betwixt both wherewithal they mingle powder of Gold and Silver to encrease the waight The musk of Salmindy is worst of al because it is taken out of his bladder or cod and put into a glass There are some which prefer the Tumbascine Musk and they say that the odor thereof cometh from the sweet herbs whereupon the Beast feedeth and the like is said of the Region of Sceni but the odor is not equal to the other And the Tumbascines do not gather the Musk after the fashions of others for they draw not forth this matter out of the cod nor yet gather it in calm weather The Genians they press forth the matter out of the ventricle and when they have it forth mingle it with other things and that in cloudy and tempestuous weather afterwards they put them up in glasses and stop the mouth close and so they send it to be sold unto the Sarizines and to Amanus and to Parsis and to Haharac as if he were a Tumbescine When this Beast goeth furthest from the Sea and feedeth toward the Desert upon Spikenard then is his Musk sweeter but when they feed neer the Sea it is not so fragrant because they feed upon Myrrh Avicen saith there is some kinde of Musk like a Citron but such hath not been seen in this part of the world for our Musk is most commonly like the colour of Iron and the savour of it like a Cyrenian Apple but stronger and consisteth of little pieces but it is better that hangeth together and hath a savour of the Wilderness but if it be adulterated with Snakes or Birds-dung then will it be lesser pleasant in the savour and also pinch and offend the nose The Hunters of Tebeth and Seni as we have shewed already do kill their sweet Rose and afterwards take out from them their bladder of Musk which Musk being excerpted before it be ripe smelleth strongly and unpleasantly And then they hang it up a little while in the open and free air wherein it ripeneth as it were by concoction in the Sun and thereby receiveth an admirable sweetness And the like do divers Gardners use towards Apples and fruits of trees which are gathered before they be ripe For by laying them up in a dry place they wear away their sharpness and become pleasant But it is to be remembred that Musk is the best which doth ripen in its own cod before it be taken out of the Beast for before it is ripe it smelleth displeasantly There is not much perfect Musk brought into this part of the World but the strength of it cometh from the vertue of the cod wherein it is put and so it is brought to us but the best is brought out of the East where groweth Spikenard and sweet herbs Rodericus Lusitanus saith that our Musk is compounded of divers things the ground whereof is the bloud of a little Beast like a Cony which is brought out of Pegun a Province of India But the means whereby to try it may be this after it is waighed they put it into some moist or wet powder and after a little while they weigh it the second time and if it exceed the former waight then do they take it for sound perfect and good but if it do not exceed then do they judge it adulterate Some Merchants when they are to buy Musk stop it to their noses and holding their breath run half a stones cast
or wrung together through the pinching of their shoos to help themselves withall and for those which are lame and those which are troubled with those grievous sores called Fistulaes If any man shall take either in meat or drink the marrow of a Mule to the weight or quantity of three golden crowns he shall presently become blockish and altogether unexpert of wisdom and understanding and shall be void of all good nutriment and manners The ear-laps or ear-lages of a Mule and the stones of a Mulet being born and carried by any woman are of such great force and efficacy that they will make her not to conceive The heart of a Mule being dryed and mingled with Wine and so given to a woman to drink after that she is purged or cleansed thirty times hath the same force and power that the aforesaid medicine hath for the making of a woman barren The same effect against conception hath the bark of a white poplar tree being beaten together with the reins of a Mule then mingled in Wine and afterwards drunk up If the herb called Harts-tongue be tied upon any part of a woman with the spleen of a Mule but as some have affirmed by it self only and that in the day which hath a dark night or without any Moonshine at all it will make her altogether barren and not able to conceive If the two stones of a Mule be bound in a piece of the skin of the same Beast and hanged upon any woman they will make that she shall not conceive so long as they shall be bound unto her The left stone of a Weesil being bound in the skin or hide of a Mule and steeped or soked for a certain space or time in Wine or in any other drink and the drink in which they are so steeped given to a woman to drink doth surely make that she shall not conceive The stones of a Mulet being burned upon a barren and unfruitful tree and put out or quenched with the stale or urine of either Man or Beast which is gelded being bound and tyed in the skin of a Mule and hanged upon the arm of any woman after her menstrual fluxes will altogether resist and hinder her conception The right stone of a Mule being burned and fastned unto the arm of a woman which is in great pain and travail will make that she shall never be delivered until the same be loosened and taken away but if it shall happen that a Maid or young Virgin shall take this in drink after her first purgation or menses she shall never be able to conceive but shall be always barren and unfruitful The matrix or womb of a female Mule taken and boiled with the flesh of an Ass or any other flesh whatsoever and so eaten by a woman which doth not know what it is will cause her never to conceive after the same The worm which is called a Gloworm or a Globird being taken out of the womb or matrice of a female Mule and bound unto any part of a womans body will make that she shall never be to able conceive The dust or powder which proceedeth from the hoofs of a male or female Mule being mixed or mingled with Oyl which cometh from Myrtleberries doth very much help those which are troubled with the Gout in their legs or feet The dust of the hoofs of a Mule being scorched or burned and the Oyl of Myrtle-berries being mingled with Vinegar and moist or liquid Pitch and wrought or tempered in the form or fashion of a plaister and opposed or put unto the head of any one whose hairs are too fluent and abundant doth very speedily and effectually expel the same The liver of a Mule being burned or dryed unto dust and mixed with the same Oyl of Myrtle-berries and so anointed or spread upon the head is an excellent and profitable remedy for the curing of the aforesaid enormity The dust or powder of the hoofs of a female Mule is very wholesome and medicinable for the healing and curing of all griefs and pains which do happen or come unto a mans yard being sprinkled thereupon The hoof of a Mule being born by a woman which is with childe doth hinder her conception The filth or uncleanness which is in the ears of a Mule being bound in the skin or hide of a little or young Hart and bound or hanged upon the arm of a woman after her purgation doth cause that she may not conceive The same being in like manner mingled or mixed with Oyl which is made of Beavers-stones doth make any woman to whom it is given to drink altogether barren The dirt or dung of a Mule being mixed with a syrup made of Hony Vinegar and Water and given to any one to drink that is troubled with the heart swelling will very speedily and effectually cure the pain thereof The dung of a Mule being burned or dryed and beaten small and afterwards sifted or seirced and washed or steeped in Wine and given to any woman to drink whose menstrual fluxes come forth before their time will in very short space cause the same to stay The stale or urine of a male or female Mule being mingled with their dirt or dung is very good and medicinable for those to use which are troubled with corns and hard bunches of flesh which grow in their feet Assa foetida being mingled with the urine of a Mule to the quantity of a bean and drunk will altogether be an impediment and hinderance to the conception of any woman The stale or urine of a Mule being taken to the quantity of eight pounds with two pounds of the scum or refuge of silver and a pound of old and most clear Oyl all these being beaten or pounded together until they come to the thickness of the fat or sweat which falleth from mens bodies and boiled until they come unto so liquid and thin a juyce that they will speedily and effectually cure and help those which are troubled with the Gout or swelling in the joynts If a woman shall take the sweat which proceedeth from a Horse and anoint it upon a Woollen cloth and so apply it as a plaister or suppository unto her secret parts it will make her altogether barren There is an excellent remedy for those which are pursie or short winded which cometh also by the Mule which is this To take or gather the froath or some of a Mule and to put it into a cup or goblet and give it in warm water for a certain space or time to be drunk either to the man or woman which is troubled with this enormity and the party which do so use it shall in short space have remedy but the Mule will without any lingring of time or consuming of time in pain and sorrow die The milt of a male or female Mule being drunk in a potion or juyce
it is natural to Pea-cocks and Panthers to have divers colours in them for there are in Hircania Panthers with little round spots like eyes both black white blew and green as both Solinus and Claudius testifie which caused Martial to write thus Picto quod juga delicata collo Pardus sustinet There is a land called Terra eremborum inhabited by the Troglodytes and Sarazens in Lybia where the upper face of the earth is compared unto the Panthers skin because through the heat of the Sun it is burned and died as it were into divers colours so that ye shall see divers spots of white black and green earth as if it were done of purpose by the hand of man The teeth of the Panther are like saws as are also a Dogs and a Lions their tongue of such incredible sharpness that in licking it grateth like a file The females have four udders in the midst of their belly the heart is great in proportion because he is a violent Beast terrifying man There are many fissures in their feet Their former feet have five distinct claws or fingers and their hinder-feet but four for little ones among four-footed beasts have five fingers upon their hinder-feet when they go they hide their nails within the skin of their feet as it were in sheaths never bringing them forth but when they are in their prey to the intent they should never be broken nor dulled Their tails have no long hairs at the end like a Lions or Oxes and the Leopard hath a wider mouth then the Pardal The female is oftener times taken then the male the reason is given by Volaterran because she is inforced to seek abroad for her own meat and her young ones The place of their aboad is among the Mountains and Woods and especially they delight in the tree Camphory They raven upon flesh both Birds and Beasts for which cause they hide themselves in trees especially in Mauritania where they are not very swift of foot and therefore they give themselves to take Apes which they attain by this policy when they see the Apes they make after them who at their first approaching climbe up into the tops of trees and there sit to avoid the Panthers teeth for she is not able to follow them so high but yet she is more cunning then the Apes and therefore deviseth more shifts to take them that where nature hath denyed her bodily power there she might supply that want by the gifts of the minde Forth therefore she goeth and under the tree where the Apes are lodged she lyeth down as though she were dead stretching out her limbs and restraining her breath shutting her eyes and shewing all other tokens of expiration The Apes that sit on the tops of the tree behold from on high the behaviour of their adversary and because all of them wish her dead they more easily believe that which so much they desire and yet dare not descend to make tryal Then to end their doubts they chuse out one from among them all whom they think to be of the best courage and him they send down as it were for an espy to certifie all the residue forth then he goeth with a thousand fears in his minde and leapeth from bough to bough with no great hast for dread of an ill bargain yet being come down dareth not approach high but having taken a view of the counterfeit and repressed his own fear returneth back again After a little space he descendeth the second time and cometh nearer the Panther then before yet returneth without touching him Then he descendeth the third time looking into his eyes and maketh trial whether he draweth breath or no but the Panther keepeth both breath and limbs immoveable by that means imâ—oldning the Apes to their own destruction for the Spie-ape sitteth down beside the Panther and stirreth not now when those which are above in the tree see how their intelligencer abideth constantly beside their adversary without harm they gather their spirits together and descend down in great multitudes running about the Panther first of all going upon him and afterwards leaping with great joy and exultation mocking this their adversary with all their apish toys and testifying their joy for her supposed death and in this sort the Panther suffereth them to continue a great season till he perceiveth they are throughly wearied and then upon a sudden he leapeth up alive again taking some of them in his claws destroying and killing them with teeth and nails till he have prepared for himself a rich dinner out of his adversaries flesh And like as Vlysses endured all the contumelies and reproaches both of his maids and Wives suiters until he had a just occasion given him of revenge so doth the Panther the disdainful dealing of the Apes whereupon came the proverb Pardi mortâ—ni dissimulat Thanaton Pardaleos hypoâ—rinetai against a cunning dissembling fellow such a one as Brutuâ— was who counterfeited madness that he might get the Empire So great is the love of this Beast to all Spices and Aromatical trees that they come over all the Mountain Taurus through Armenia and Silia when the windes bring the savour of the sweet gum unto them out of Pamphilia from the tree Storax whereupon lyeth this story There was a certain Panther which was taken by King Arsaces and a golden collar put upon his neck with this inscription Rex Arsaces Deo Nisaeo that is King Arsaces to the God Bacchus for Bacchus was called Nisaeuâ— of a City Nisae in India This Beast grew very tame and would suffer himself to be handled and stroked by the hands of men until the Spring time that he winded the savour of the Aromatical trees and then he would run away from all his acquaintance according to his kinde and so at last was taken in the neather part of the Mountain Taurus which was many hundred miles distant from the Kings Court of Armenia We have shewed already how they love the gum of Camphory watching that tree to the end to preserve it for their own use and indeed as Aelianus saith Admirabâ—lem quantam odâ—ris suavitatem oâ—et Pardalis quam bene olendi praestantiam divino munere donatam cum sibi propriam plane tenet tam 〈◊〉 â—â—tera animalia ejus hanc vim praeclare sentiunt that is to say The Panther or Pardal smelleth most sweetly which savour he hath received from a divine gift and doth only feel the benefit of it himself but also bewray it unto other Beasts for when he feeleth himself to be hungry and stand in need of meat then doth he get up into some rough tree and by his savour or sweet smell draweth unto him an innumerable company of wilde Goats Harts Roes and Hindes and such other Beasts and so upon a sudden leapeth down upon them when he espyeth his convenient time And Solinus saith that the sweetness of his savour worketh the same effect
think it eateth Apples Roots and rindes of trees and peradventures Snail and such reptile creatures but being tamed it eateth all kinde of fruit likewise bread Pâ—e-crust and such things broken small It drinketh also water but above all other Wine mingled with water In the day time it sleepeth and in the night time it waketh by which we gather that being wilde it feareth the light and therefore travelleth in the night time for his meat and living It is a general live creature and begetteth other in his own kind the female bearing the young ones in her belly as long time as a Bear that is thirty days and also it hideth it self four moneths in the Winter time like a Bear but whether for cold or any other cause the Authors do not express In my opinion for cold rather then for any other reason although there be some that affirm it lyeth hid in the Summer time and cometh abroad in the Winter time contrary to the course of all other Beasts and therefore such a Paradox doth want the testimony of some credible Writers which should affirm it upon their own experience or else it were requisite to bring sufficient reasons to lead their Readers to believe it but neither of both is discharged by them and th 〈…〉 it is safer for us to follow Aristotle and Pliny who hold the first opinion then Albertus and A 〈…〉 ola who encline to the later In all other things both of their lying hid of their procreation o 〈…〉 he comming out of their cave and nourishing their young ones they imitate the manners and conditions of Bears Concerning the use of their parts I finde none but only of their quils for with them it is said if men scrape their teeth they will never be loose likewise women were wont in ancient time to use them for parting asunder their hair in the top of their crowns The flesh of this Beast is like a Hedge-hogs neither very natural for meat and nourishment nor yet very medicinable yet it is said to help a weak and over-burthened stomach to procure looseness of the belly and to diminish all Leprosies and scabbed Exulcerations and pustules Being salted it is is good against the Dropsie and also very profitable as Platina writeth to be eaten by them that cannot contain urine in their beds yet the Gracians attribute no such quality unto this but to help the stomach and loosen the belly they attribute to the Sea-hog and against the leprosie scabs and incontinency of urine to the Hedge-hog but peradventure the saying of Pliny Quae de Herinace is dicuntur o 〈…〉 tanto magis valebunt in Histrice leadeth them to attribute these things to the Porcuspine The powder of their quils burnt drunk or eaten in meats or broth doth promote and help conception Thus saith Avicen and herewithall I conclude this short discourse of the Hedg-hog Of the Reyner or Rainger THis Beast is called by the Latines Rangifer by the Germans Rein Reiner Raineger Reinsither by the French Raingier and Ranglier and the later Latines call it Rei 〈…〉 It is a Beast altogether unknown to the ancient Graecians and Latines except the Machlis that Pliny speaketh of be it But we have shewed already in the story of the Elk that Alces and Mhlis are all one This Beast was first of all discovered by Olam Magnus in this Northern part of the world towards the pole Artique as in Norway Swetia Scandinavia at the first sight whereof he called it Raingifer quasi Ramifer because he beareth horns on his head like the boughs of a tree The similitude of this Beast is much like to a Hart but it is much bigger stronger and swifter It beareth three orders or rows of horns on the head as by the direction of Valentinus Grâ—vius and Benedictus Martinus are here expressed This Beast changeth his colour according to the time of the year and also according to the quality of the place wherein he feedeth which appeareth by this because some of them are found to be of the colour of Asses and shortly after to be like Harts Their breast is full of long bristles being rough and rigid through the same The legs hairy and the hoofs hollow cloven and moveable which in his course he spreadeth abroad upon the deepest snows without pressing his foot-steps far into them and by his admirable celerity he avoideth all the wilde Beasts which in the Vallies lie in wait to destroy him He beareth very high and lofty horns which presently from the root branch forth into two stems or pikes I mean both the horns severally into two which again at the top disperse themselves into pikes like the fingers of ones hand In the middle of the horse there is a little branch standeth out like a knob or as a huckle in the hinder-part of a Beasts leg from thence again they ascend upwards a great heighth and do grow abroad at the top where they are divided like the palm of a hand The horns are white distinguished with long apparent veins differing both from the horns of Elks and the horns of Harts from Elks in height and from Harts in breadth and from them both in colour and multitude of branches When he runneth he layeth them on his back for when he stands still the lowest branches coming forth of the roots of the horns do almost cover his face with these lower branches Their Carts which they draw must be made with a sharp edge at the bottom like a boat or ship as we have said already for they are not drawn upon wheels but like drays and sleads upon the earth There was a Lapponian which brought one of these into Germany in December he professeth he never felt so much heat of the Sun in all his life as he did at that time which is our coldest time in the year and therefore how great is the cold which both men and Beasts endure in that Countrey The horns of these Beasts are to be seen both in Berne and at Auspurge in Germany the feet are some-what white being rounder then a Harts feet and more cloven or divided wherefore at some times one part of his hoof may be seen upon a stone while the other part resteth upon the earth and in the upper part of the hoof where it beginneth to be cloven near the leg there is a certain thick skin or membrane by vertue whereof the foot may be stretched in the division without harm or pain to the Beast The King of Swetia had ten of them nourished at Lappa which he caused every day to be driven unto the Mountains into the cold air for they were not able to endure the heat The mouth of this Beast is like the mouth of a Cow they many times come out of Laponia into Swetia where they are wonderfully annoyed with Wolves but they gather themselves together in a ring and so fight against their enemies with their horns They are
it ought to be contrary and therefore the most fearful have the softest hair the Sheep of Scythia in the cold Countries have soft wooll but in Sauromatia they have hard wooll Florentinus prescribeth that the fine wooll of a Sheep is not curled but standeth upright for he saith that curled wooll is easily corrupted or falsified The head of the Sheep is very weak and his brain not fat the horns of the female are weak if they have any at all for in many places they have none like Hindes and in England there are both males and females that want horns And again the Rams of England have greater horns then any other Rams in the world and sometimes they have four or six horns on their head as hath been often seen In Africk their male-sheep or Rams are yeaned with horns and also their females and in Pontus neither males nor females have ever any horns Their eyes ought to be great and of a waterish colour and all Beasts that want hands have their eyes standing far distant on their heads especially Sheep because they had need to look on both sides and because they are of a simple and harmless disposition as we shall shew afterwards for the little eye such as is in Lions and Panthers betoken craft and cruelty but the great eye simplicity and innocency Their teeth stand in one continued row or bone as in a Horse but in the upper chap there are no fore-teeth the male having more teeth then the female There be some that write that Virgil calleth Sheep Bidenâ—es because they have but two teeth but they do it ignorantly for we may read in Servius Nigidius and Nonius that Boars are called Bidentes and all Beasts of two years old for they were first of all called Bidennes quasi Biennes by inter position of the letter D. according to the other words as we do not say reirâ— but redire nor reamate but redamâ—re nor â—earguere but redarguere and so Bidennis for Biennis because sacrifices were wont to be made of Sheep when they were two years old If ever it happen that a Sheep have but two teeth it is held for a monster and therefore a Sheep is called Ambidens and Bidens because he hath teeth both above and beneath The belly of a Sheep is like the belly of a Beast that chews the cud The milk proceedeth from the ventricle or maw The stones hang down to the hinder-legs The females have their udders betwixt their thighes like to Goats and Cows some of them have galls acccording to the ordinary custom of nature and some of them have none at all for in Pontus where by reason they eat Wormwood they have no gall Likewise in Galâ—is some we have shewed have two galls and the Scythian Sheep have galls at one time and not at another as Aelianus writeth for he saith in the very cold Countries when snow and winter covereth the earth there Sheep have no galls because they keep within doores and use no change of meat but in the Summer when they go abroad again to feed in the fields they are replenished with galls There is a Region in Asia called Scâ—psis wherein they say their Sheep have little or no milts The reins of a Sheep are equal and there is no Beast that hath them covered with fat like unto it Sheep are also apt to grow exceeding fat for in the year 1547. there was a fat Sheep given to the King of Franâ—e in Pickardy whereof the inward hoofs or cloves of his fore-feet were grown to be as long as eight fingers are broad the tops whereof were recurved backward like the horns of a wilde Goat Concerning their tails we have spoken already for the vulgar Sheep have hairy tails like Foxes and Wolves And thus much shall suffice to have spoken of their several parts In the next place we are to consider the food and diet of Sheep and then their inclination and the utility that ariseth by them and lastly the several diseases with their medicines and cures It is therefore to be remembred that the Ancients appointed shepheards to attend their flocks and there was none of great account but they were called Shepheards or Neatheards or Goatheards that is Bucolici Opiliones and Aepoli as we have shewed already in the story of Goats and the Gentiles do report that the knowledge of feeding Oxen and Sheep came first of all from the Nymphs who taught Aristeus in the Island of Co. The Graecians therefore call a shepheard Poiman that is a feeder of Poimainein to feed and the Poets also use Poimantâ—r for a shepheard and the shepheards Dogs that keep the flock from the Wolf Pominitay kunes for the Sheep being not kept well be overcome by the Woolfs according to the saying of Virgil Nam lupus insidias explorat ovilia circum And Ovid likewise saith Incustoditum captat ovile Lupus The whole care therefore of the Shepheard must be first for their food secondly for their fold and thirdly for their health that so he may raise a profitable gain either to himself or to him that oweth the Sheep To begin with the food Their diet doth not much differ from Goats and yet they have some things peculiar which must now be expressed It is good therefore that their pastures and feeding places look towards the Sun-setting and that they be not driven over far or put to too much labour for this cause the good shepheard may safely feed his Sheep late in the evening but not suffer them to go early abroad in the morning They eat all manner of herbs and plants and some-times kill them with their bitings so as they never grow more The best is to give them always green meat and to feed them upon land fallowed or ploughed to be sown with corn and although by feeding them in fat pastures they come to have a softer wool or hair according to the nature of their food yet because they are of a moist temperament it is better to feed them upon the salt and short pasture for by such a diet they both better live in health and also bear more pretious wooll In dry pastures they are more healthy then in the fenny and this is the cause why it is most wholesome for them to keep in ploughed grounds wherein they meet with many sweet and pleasant herbs or else in upland medows because all moisture breedeth in them rottenness he must avoid the Woods and shadowy places even as he doth the fens for if the Sun come not upon the Sheeps food it is as hurtfull unto him as if he picked it out of the waters and the shepheard must not think that there is any meat so grateful unto this cattle but that use and continuance will make them to loath it wherefore he must provide this remedy namely to give them salt oftentimes in the Summer when they retarn from feeding and if he do but lay it in certain troughs
shall suffice to have spoken concerning the Summering of Sheep For their Wintering I will say more when I come to entreat of their stabling or housing Now then it followeth in the next place to discourse of copulation or procreation for there are divers good rules and necessary observations whereby the skilful shepheard must be directed and which he ought to observe for the better encrease of his flock First of all therefore it is clear that Goats will engender at a year old and sometime Sheep also follow that season but there is a difference betwixt the Lambs so engendered and the other that are begotten by the elder therefore at two year old they may more safely be suffered to engender and so continue till they be five year old and all their Lambs be preserved for breeding but after five year old their strength and natural vertue decreaseth so that then neither the Dam nor the Lamb is worthy the nourishing except for the knife for that is born and bred of an old decayed substance will also resemble the qualities of his sires There be some that allow not the Lamb that is yeaned before the parents be four year old and so they give them four years to engender and breed namely till they be eight year old but after eight years they utterly cast them off and this opinion may have some good reason according to the quality of the Region wherein they live for the sooner they begin to bear young the sooner they give over and herein they differ not from Cows who if they breed not till they be four year old may continue the longer and for this cause I will express the testimony of Albertus who writeth thus Oves parere usque ad annum octavum possunt si bene curentur vel in undec 〈…〉 facultas pariendi protrahitur quod tempus est tota fere vita oves in quibusdam tamen terris marinis ubi sicâ—â— salsa habent pascua vivunt per viginti annos pariunt That is to say Sheep may breed until they be eight year old and if they be well kept until they be eleven which time is for the most part the length of their days although in some Countries upon the Sea coasts they live till they be twenty year old and all that time breed young ones because they feed upon dry and salt pastures and therefore Aristotle also saith that they bring forth young ones all the time of their life The time of their copulation as Pliny and Varro write is from May till about the middle of August and their meaning is for the Sheep of those hot Countries For in England and other places shepheards protract the time of their copulation and keep the Rams and Ewes asunder till September or October because they would not have their Lambs to fall in the cold Winter season but in the Spring and warm weather and this is observed by the ancient shepheards that if the strongest Sheep do first of all begin to engender and couple one with another that it betokeneth a very happy and fortunate year to the flock but on the contrary if the younger and weaker Sheep be first of all stirred up to lust and the elder be backward and slow it presageth a pestilent and rotten year They which drink salt Water are more prone to copulation then others and commonly at the third or fourth time the female is filled by the male There is a great similitude and likeness betwixt Sheep and Goats First for their copulation because they couple together at the same time Secondly for the time they bear their young which is five moneths or a hundred and fifty days also many times they bring forth twins like Goats and the Rams must be alway so admitted as the Lambs may fall in the Spring of the year when all things grow sweet and green and when all is performed then must the males be separated from the females again that so all the time they go with young they may go quietly without harm In their conception they are hindered if they be over fat for it is with them as it is among Mares and Horses some are barren by nature and others by accident as by overmuch leanness or over-much fatness Plutarâ—h maketh mention of an ancient custome among the Graecians that they were wont to drive their Sheep to the habitation of Agenor to be covered by his Rams And I know not whether he relate it is a story or as a Proverb to signifie a fruitful and happy Ramming time I rather incline to the later because he himself saith in the same place that Agenor was a wise and skilful King Master of many flocks whose breed of Sheep was accounted the best of all that Nation and therefore either they sent their females to be covered by his Rams or else they signified a happy conjunction of the Rams and Ewes together Pliny writeth that if the right stone of a Ram be tyed or bound fast when he leapeth upon an Ewe he will engender a male but if the left stone be tyed he will beget a female Near the City Patrae there are two Rivers one of them called Milichus and the other Charadrus and the Cattle that drink of this water in the Spring time do beget males and therefore shepheards when they bring their Sheep and Goats to that River they drive them to the farther side of the River because they would have more females then males for that vertue lyeth in one of the sides but their Kine they suffer to drink on that side because among their heards the male is best for Bulls and Oxen serve them for sacrifice and to till the earth and therefore the male in that kinde but in all other the female is more acceptable Both males and females are begotten as well by the vertues of waters as by the vertue of the Rams and likewise by the vertue of the winde for when the North winde bloweth for the most part males are conceived but when the South winde females and therefore Aristotle saith In admissuâ—ae tâ—mpore observare siccis diebus habitus septentrionales ut contra ventum gregem pascamus cum spectans admittatur pecus at si foeâ—inae generandae sunt austrinos flatus captare ut eadem ratione matrices â—â—eantur That is to say In the Ramming time you must observe the blowing of the Northern winde in dry days and not only seed the flock against the winde but also cause the Ram to leap the Ewe with his face to the North but if you would engender females then must you in like manner observe the South winde Unto this experiment do Palladius Aelianus and Columella agree and these things are necessary to be observed about the engendering of Lambs Now after that the Ewe is filled by the Ram the diligent shepheard must have as great regard to keep her from abortment or casting of her Lamb therefore
and yet the same Beast appear meek and gentle unto them there they should take their wives When they came into the land of the Cleonians they met with a Wolf carrying a Lamb in his mouth whereupon they conceived that the meaning of Apollo was that when they met with a Wolf in that Countrey they might very happily and successively take them wives and so they did for they married with the daughters of Thesander Cleonymus a very honest man of that Countrey It is reported of Milo Crotoniata that valiant strong man how upon a season rending a tree in sunder in the woods one of his arms was taken in the closing of the tree and he had not strength enough to loose it again but remained there inclosed in most horrible torments until a Wolf came and devoured him The like story unto this is that which Aelianus reporteth of Gelon the Syracusan a Scholar unto whom there came a Wolf as he sat in the School writing on his Tables and took the writing tables out of his hand The Schoolmaster being inraged herewith and knowing himself to be a valiant man took hold of the same tables in the Wolfs mouth and the Wolf drew the Master and Scholars in hope of recovery of the tables out of the School into a plain field where suddenly he destroyed the Schoolmaster and a hundred Scholars sparing none but Gelon whose tables were a bait for that prey for he was not only not slain but preserved by the Wolf to the singular admiration of all the world whereby it was collected that that accident did not happen naturally but by the over-ruling hand of God Now for these occasions as also because that the wooll and skin of beasts killed by Wolves are good for nothing although the flesh of Sheep is more sweeter are unprofitable and good for nothing Men have been forced to invent and finde out many devises for the destroying of Wolfs for necessity hath taught men much learning and it had been a shameful misery to indure the tyranny of such spoiling beasts without labouring for resistance and revenge for this cause they propounded also a reward to such as killed VVolfs for by the law of Draco he that killed a young VVolf received a talent and that killed an old VVolf received two talents Solon prescribed that he that brought a VVolf alive should receive five pieces of money and he that brought one dead should receive two Apollo himself was called Lycoctonos a VVolf-killer because he taught the people how to put away VVolfs Horner calleth Apollo Lycegenes for that it is said immediately after he was born of his mother Latona he was changed into the shape of a VVolf and so nourished and for this cause there was the Image of a VVolf set up at Delphos before him Others say that the reason of that Image was because that when the Temple of Delphos was robbed and the treasure thereof hid in the ground while diligent inquisition was made after the theeves there came a VVolf and brought them to the place where the golden vessels were covered in the earth which she pulled out with her feet And some say that a VVolf did kill the sacrileger as he lay asleep on the Mountain Parnassus having all the treasure about him and that every day she came down to the gates of Delphos howling until some of the Citizens followed her into the Mountain where she shewed them the theef and the treasure both together But I list not to follow or stand upon these fables The true cause why Apollo was called a VVolf-killer was for that he was feigned to be a Shepheard or Herdsman and therefore in love of his Cattle to whom VVolfs were enemies he did not only kill them while he was alive but also they were offered unto him in sacrifice for VVolfs were sacred to Apollo Jupiter and Mars and therefore we read of Apollo Lycius or Lyceus to whom there were many Temples builded and of Jupiter Lyceus the sacrifices instituted unto him called Lycaea and games by the same name There were other holy-days call'd Lupercalia wherein barren women did chastise themselves naked because they bare no children hoping thereby to gain the fruitfulness of the womb whereof Ovid speaketh thus Excipe foecundae patienter verbera dextrae Jam socer optatum nomen habebit avi Propertius and some other writers seem to be of the minde that those were first instituted by Fabius Lupercus as appeareth by these verses Verbera pellitus seto samovebat arator Vnde licens Fabius sacra Lupercus habet And Juvenal thus Nec prodest agili palmas praebere Luperco Now concerning the manner of taking of VVolfs the Ancients have invented many devises and gins and first of all an Iron toil which they still fasten in the earth with Iron pins upon which pins they feave a ring being in compass about the bigness of a VVolfs head in the midst whereof they lay a piece of flesh and cover the Toil so that nothing is seen but the flesh when the Wolf cometh and taketh hold of the flesh feeling it stick pulling hard he pulleth up the ring which bringeth the whole Toil on his neck and sharp pins This is the first manner that Crescentiensis repeateth of taking VVolfs and he saith there are other devises to ensnare their feet which the Reader cannot understand except he saw them with his eyes The Italians call the nets wherein VVolfs are taken Tagliola Harpago Lo Rampino and Lycino the French Hauspied and Blondus affirmeth that the shepheards of Italy make a certain gin with a net wherein that part of the VVolf is taken which is first put into it Now the manner of taking VVolfs in ditches and pits is divers first of all they dig a deep ditch so as the VVolf being taken may not go out of it upon this pit they lay a hurdle and within upon the pillar they set a live Goose or Lamb when the VVolf windeth his prey or booty he cometh upon the trench and seeing it at a little hole which is left open on purpose to cast the VVolf into the deep ditch and some use to lay upon it a weak hurdle such as will not bear up either a man or a beast that so when the VVolf cometh upon it it may break and he fall down but the best devise in my opinion that ever was invented in this kinde is that the perch and hurdle may be so made and the bait so set that when one VVolf is fallen down it may rise again of it owne accord and stand as it did before to entrap another and great care must be had that these kinde of ditches may be made in solid and strong earth or if the place afford not that opportunity then must the inside be lined with boards to the intent that the beast by scraping and digging with his feet make no evasion The Rhatians use to raise up to a Tree a certain
and freely their diet and maintenance which costeth them nothing The Lockers or holes of the up-grown Bees are somewhat too large if you respect the quantity of their bodies but their combes lesser for those they build themselves and these other are made by the Bees because it was not thought convenient and indifferent so great a portion of meat to be given to such vile labourers and hirelings as was due to their own sons and daughters and those that are naturally subjects Tzetzes and some other Greeks do besides affirm that the Drones are the Bees Butlers or Porters to carry them water ascribing moreover to them a gentle and kindely heat with which they are said to keep warm cherish and nourish the young breed of the Bees by this means as it were quick 〈…〉 g them and adding to them both life and strength The same affirmeth Columella in these words The Drones further much the Bees for the procreation of their issue for they sitting upon their kinde or generation the Bees are shaped and attain to their figure and therefore for the maintenance education and defence of a new issue they receive the more friendly entertainment And Pliny lib. 11 c 11. differeth not from him For not only they are great helpers to the Bees in any architectonical or cunning devised frame as he saith but also they do good in helping and succouring their young by giving them much warmth and kindely heat which the greater it is unlesse there be some lack of Honey in the mean space the greater will the swarm be In sum except they should stand the Bees in some good stead the Almighty would never have enclosed them both in one house and as it were made them freemen of the same City Neither doubtlesse would the Bees by main force violently break in upon them as being the sworn and professed enemies of their Common-wealth except when their slavish multitude being too much increased they might fear some violence or rebellion or for lack of provision at which time who seeth not that it were far better the Master work-men free Masons and Carpenters might be spared then the true labouring Husbandman and tiller of the earth Especially since that missing these our life is endangered for lack of meat and other necessaries and those other for a time we may very well spare without our undoing and for a need every one may build his own lodging But as they be profitable members not exceeding a stinted and certain number so if they be too many they bring a sicknesse called the Hive-evill as well because they consume the food of the Honey-making Bees as for that in regard of their extream heat they choke and suffecate them This disease is by the Author of Geoponicon thus remedied Moisten with water inwardly the lid or covering of their Hive and early in the morning opening it you shall finde Drones sitting on the drops that are on the covers for being glutted with Honey they are exceeding thirsty and by that means they will stick fast to the moist and dewie places of the cover So that with small ado you may either destroy them quite or else if you please take away what number you list your self And if you will take away withall their young who are not yet winged and first pulling off their heads throw them among the other Bees you shall bestow on them a very welcome dinner But what the dreaning of Drones portended and what matter they minister in the Hieroglyphical Art let Apomasueris reveal and disclose out of the Schools of the Egyptians and Persians I think I have discharged my duty if I have set down their true uses true nature generation degeneration description and names Fur in Latine or Theef in English is by Aristotle called Phoor of Hesychius Phoorios from whence I take the Latine word Fur to be derived Some have thought that Theeves are one proper sort of Bees although they be very great and black having a larger belly or bulk then the true Bee and yet lesser then the drones they have purchased this theevish name because they do by theft and robbery devour Honey belonging to others and not to them The Bees do easily endure and can well away with the presence of the Drones and do as it were greet and bid one another welcome but the Theeves they cannot endure in regard that the Bees do naturally hate them for in their absence the Theeves privily and by stealth creep in there robbing and consuming their treasure of Honey so greedily and hastily without chewing swallowing it down that being met withall by the true Bees in their return homewards and found so unweildy by means of their fulness that they cannot get away nor be able to resist but are ready to burst again they are severely punished and for their demerits by true Justice put to death Neither thus only do they prodigally consume and spend the Bees meat but also privily breed in their cells whereby it often cometh to passe that there are as many Drones and Theeves as true and lawful Bees These neither gather Honey nor build houses nor help to bear out any mutual labour with Bees for which cause they have Watch-men or Warders appointed to observe and oversee by night such as are over-wearied by taking great and undefatigable pains in the day time to secure them from the Theeves and Robbers who if they perceive any Theef to be stoln in a doors they presently set upon him beat and either kill him outright or leaving him for half dead they throw him out Oftentimes also it happeneth that the Theef being glutted and over-cloyed with Honey cannot flie away or get himself gone in time but lyeth wallowing before the Hives entrance until his enemies either in coming forth or returning home do so finde him and so with shame discredit and scoffingscorn slay him Aristotle appointeth no office charge or businesse to the Theef but I think that he is ordained for this end that he might be as it were a spur to prick forwards and to whet and quicken the courage of the true Bees when the other offer them any injury and to stir and to encourage them to a greater vigilancy diligence and doing of right and justice to every one particularly For I cannot see to what other purpose Theeves should serve in a Christian Common-wealth or what use might be made of such as lie in wait to displeasure and practice by crafty fetches ambushes and deceitful treacheries to wound their Neighbours either in their estimation credit or goods Thus having at large discoursed of the lesse hurtful and stinging sort of Bees I will now apply my self to a more fumish testy angry Waspish and implacable generation more venomous then the former I mean Wasps and Hornets Of WASPS A Wasp of the Chaldeans is tearmed Deibrane Of the Arabians Zambor Of the Englishmen a Wasp Of the Germans Ein Wespe Of the Belgics
wound to be judged by the eye unto those parts that are next the entrails as the heart liver and the rest They weave their webs after a fine and exquisite manner as Spiders do drawing out in length framing and trimming in good order their hairy small threads And under these when â—ight draweth on they lie as in their own proper tent and pavillion aswell to avoid cold as the 〈…〉 mmodities of furious blasts and storms for the matter and substance of this their tent is so handsomely wrought so firm stiffe clammy and sure that they neither care for furious windes nor yet any rain or storm will ever sole through Besides the largenesse of this house is such and of so great receit as it will easily receive and lodge many thousands of Caterpillers They make their nests or buildings in the highest branches of the Pitch and Pine-trees where they live not solitarily as other Palmer-worms do but in flocks or companies together Which way soever they take their journey they are still spinning and drawing out their threads for their web and early in the morning if it be likely to prove fair the younger sort by heaps attend the elder and having first bared and robbed the trees of all their boughs and leaves for they make clean riddance of all wheresoever they come they afterwards dexterously bend themselves to their weaving craft They are the only plague and destruction of Pitch and Pine-trees for unto any other roziny or gummy trees they never do harm There is great plenty of them to be found in the Mountain of Athos situate betwixt Macedonia and Thrace in the Woods of Trident and in divers Valleys beyond the Alpes in which places there is store of these fore-named trees as Matthiolus saith They are doubtlesse most poysonous and venomous vermine whether they be crushed outwardly with the hands or taken inwardly into the body yea they are so known manifest and so never failing a poyson and so esteemed of in times past as that Vlpian the famous Lawyer interpreting the Law Cornelia de Sicariis or privy murtherers that he in that place calleth and esteemeth the giver of any Pityocampie in drink or otherwise to any one to be doomed a murtherer and their punishment to be equallized Sect. Alium ff ad Leg. Corn. de sic As soon as this kinde of Caterpiller is received into the body there followeth immediately a great pain extremely tormenting the mouth and palate the tongue belly and stomach are grievously inflamed by their corroding and gnawing poysonous quality besides the intolerable pain the receiver feeleth although at first the party seemeth to feel a certain pleasant itching but it is not long before he perceiveth a great burning within loathing and detesting of meat and a continual desire to vomit and go to the stool which neverthelesse he cannot do At length unlesse speedy succour be given they so miserably burn and parch the body that they bring a hard crustinesse skurffe or scald upon the stomach as though the sides thereof had been plastered with some hard shards or other like things after the manner of Arsenick as Dioscorides Aetius Pliny and Celsus do assure us In like manner Galen in his eleventh Book Simp. cap. 50. and Avicen 505. cap. 25. have testified the same And for this cause Aetius and Aegineta do say that it is nothing wholesome for any to sit down â—o meat to spread the Table or make any long tariance under any Pine tree lest peradventure through the savour or smell of the meats the reek or vapour of their broaths or noise of men the Pityocampies being disturbed from their homes and usual resting places might fall down either into their meats beneath or at least-wise cast down or let fall any of their seed as poysonous as themselves They that receive hurt by them must have recourse to those preservatives and medicines as were prescribed to those that were poysoned by Cantharides for by them they are to be cured and by no other means Yet for all that Oyl of Quinces is properly commended to vomit withall in this case which must be taken twice or thrice even by the prescript of Dioscorides and Aetius They are generated or to speak more aptly they are regenerated after the manner of Vine-fretters which are a kinde of Caterpillers or little hairy Worms with many feet that eat Vines when they begin to shoot of that Autumnal seed of theirs left and reserved in certain small bags or bladders within their webs There is another sort of these Caterpillers who have no certain place of abode nor yet cannot tell where to finde their food but like unto superstitious Pilgrims do wander and stray hither and thither and like Mice consume and eat up that which is none of their own and these have purchased a very apt name amongst us Englishmen to be called Palmer-worms by reason of their wandering and roguish life for they never stay in one place but are ever wandering although by reason of their roughnesse and ruggednesse some call them Bear-worms They can by no means endure to be dieted and to feed upon some certain herbs and flowers but boldly and disorderly creep over all and tast of all plants and trees indifferently and live as they list There are sundry other sorts of these Cankers or Caterpillers to be found in the herbs called Cranesbil Ragwort Petie-mullen Hops Coleworts Hasels Marigolds Fennil Lycorice Basil Alder Nightshade Water-betony Garden-spurge and other sorts of that herb in Elm-trees Pear-trees Nettles and Gilliflowers Yea there is not any plant to be found which hath not his proper and peculiar enemy and destroyer all which because they are so commonly known of all though perhaps not of all observed I will lest I should seem to be infinite passe over with silence But yet I will adde a word or two of a strange and stinking Caterpiller which it was never my hap as yet to see described by Conradus Gesner in these words following This stinking Caterpiller saith he is very like to those that are horned but yet it wanteth horns differing from them all in colour I first espyed it creeping upon a wall toward the end of August Anno 1550. there cometh from it a lothsome and an abominable savour and smell so that you would verily believe it to be very venomous It went forwards very frowningly and with a quick angry and despightful countenance as it were in bending wise the head always stretched up a loft with the two former feet I judge her to be blinde She was the length and breadth of a mans finger with a few scattering and rugged hairs somewhat bristly and hard both on her back and sides the back was very black the colour of her belly and sides was somewhat red enclining to yellow and the whole body was distinguished divided and easily discerned with fourteen joynts or knots and every joynt had a certain furrow like a kinde of wrinckle running all
they set their Grab-hooks unto them to loose them for the day before they remembred that a Ship was cast away in the same place and therefore they thought that it might be the Nets were hanged upon some of the tacklings thereof and therein they were not much deceived for it happened that finding the place whereupon the Net did stay they pulled and found some difficulty to remove it but at last they pulled it up and found it to be a chair of beaten gold At the sight hereof their spirits were a little revived because they had attained so rich a booty and yet like men burdened with wealth especially the old man conceived new fears and wished he were on land lest some storm should fall and lay both it and them the second time in the bottom of the Sea So great is the impression of fear and the natural presage of evill in men that know but little in things to come that many times they prove true Prophets of their own destruction although they have little reason till the moment of perill come upon them and so it fell out accordingly in this old man for whilest he feared death by storms and tempests on the Sea it came upon him but by another way and means For behold the Devill entred into the hearts of his two servants and they conspired together to kill the old man their Master that so between themselves they might be owners of that great rich chair the value whereof as they conceived might make them Gentlemen and maintain them in some other Countrey all the days of their life For such was the resolution that they conceived upon the present that it would not be safe for them to return home again after the fact committed lest they should be apprehended for murder as they justly deserved their Master being so made away by them The Devill that had put this wicked motion into their mindes gave them likewise present opportunity to put the same in execution depriving them of all grace pity and piety still thrusting them forward to perform the same So that not giving him any warning of his death one of them in most savage and cruel manner dashed out his brains and the other speedily cast him into the Sea And thus the fear of this old man conceived without all reason except superstition for the sight of a Fiery-drake came upon him in a more bloudy manner then he expected but life suspected it self and rumors of peril unto guilty consciences such as all we mortal men bear are many times as forcible as the sentence of a Judge to the heart of the condemned prisoner and therefore it were happy that either we could not fear except when the causes are certain or else that we might never perish but upon premonition And therefore I conclude with the example of this man that it is not good to hold a superstitious fear lest God see it and being angry therewith bring upon us the evill which we fear But this is not the end of the story for that Fire-drake as by the sequel appeareth proved as evill to the servants as he did to the Master These two sons of the Devill made thus rich by the death of their Master forthwith they sailed towards the Coast of France but first of all they broke the Chair in pieces and wrapped it up in one of their Nets making account that it was the best fish that ever was taken in that Net and so they laid it in one end of their Bark or Fisher-boat And thus they laboured all that night and the next day till three or four of the clock at what time they espyed a Port of Britain whereof they were exceeding glad by reason that they were weary hungry and thirsty with long labour always rich in their own conceit by the gold which they had gotten which had so drawn their hearts from God as they could not fear any thought of his judgement And finally it so blinded their eyes and stopped their ears that they did not see the vengeance that followed them nor hear the cry of their Masters bloud Wherefore as they were thus rejoycing at the sight of land behold they suddenly espyed a Man of War coming towards them whereat they were appalled and began to think with themselves that their rich hopes were now at an end and they had laboured for other but yet resolved to die rather then to suffer the booty to be taken away from them And while they thus thought the Man of War approached and hailed them summoning them to come in and shew what they were they refused making forward as fast to the Land as they could Wherefore the Man of War shot certain Muskets at them and not prevailing nor they yeelding sent after them his Long-boat upon the entrance thereof they fought manfully against the assaylants until one of them was slain and the other mortally wounded who seeing his fellow kill'd and himself not likely to live yet in envy against his enemy ran presently to the place where the Chair lay in the Net and lifting the same up with all his might cast it from him into the Sea instantly falling down after that fact as one not able through weaknesse to stand any longer whereupon he was taken and before his life left him he related the whole story to them that took him earnestly desiring them to signifie so much into England which they did accordingly and as I have heard the whole story was printed and so this second History of the punishment of murder I have related in this place by occasion of the Fiery-drake in the History of the Dragon A second cause why poyson is supposed to be in Dragons is for that they often feed upon many venomous roots and therefore their poyson sticketh in their teeth whereupon many times the party bitten by them seemeth to be poysoned but this falleth out accidentally not from the nature of the Dragon but from the nature of the meat which the Dragon eateth And this is it which Homer knew and affirmed in his verses when he described a Dragon making his den neer unto the place where many venomous roots and herbs grew and by eating whereof he greatly annoyeth mankinde when he biteth them Os de Drakoon espi Xein oresteros andra menesi Bebrocos kaka pharmaka Which may be thus Englished And the Dragon which by men remains Eats evill herbs without deadly pains And therefore Aelianus saith well that when the Dragon meaneth to do most harm to men he eateth deadly poysonful herbs so that if he bite after them many not knowing the cause of the poyson and seeing or feeling venom by it do attribute that to his nature which doth proceed from his meat Besides his teeth which bite deep he also killeth with his tail for be will so begirt and pinch in the body that he doth gripe it to death and also the strokes of it are so strong that either
men and therefore speaking to the Frogs he citeth these verses Vos quoque signa videtis aquai dulcis alumnae Cum clamore paratis inanes fundere voces Absurdoque sono fontes stagna cietis In English thus And you O Water-birds which dwell in streams so sweet Do see the signes whereby the weather is foretold Your crying voyces wherewith the waters are repleat Vain sounds absurdly moving ools and Fountains cold And thus much for the natural use of Frogs Now followeth the Magical It is said that if a man take the tongue of a Water-frog and lay it upon the head of one that is asleep he shall speak in his sleep and reveal the secrets of his heart but if he will know the secrets of a woman then must he cut it out of the Frog alive and turn the Frog away again making certain characters upon the Frogs tongue and so lay the same upon the panting of a womans heart and let him ask her what questions he will she shall answer unto him all the truth and reveal all the secret faults that ever she hath committed Now if this magical foolery were true we had more need of Frogs then of Jâ—stices of Peace or Magistrates in the Common-wealth But to proceed a little further and to detect the vanity of these men they also say that the staffe wherewithal a Frog is struck out of a Snakes mouth laid upon a woman in travail shall cause an easie deliverance and if a Man cut off a foot of a Frog as he swims in the water and binde the same to one that hath the Gout it will cure him And this is as true as a shoulder of Mutton worn in ones Hat healeth the Tooth-ach Some again do write that if a woman take a Frog and spit three times in her mouth she shall not conceive with childe that year Also if Dogs eat the pottage wherein a Frog hath been sod it maketh him dum and cannot bark And if a Man cast a sod Frog at a Dog which is ready to assault him it will make him run away I think as fast as an old hungry Horse from a bottle of Hay These and such like vanities have the ancient Heathens ignorant of GOD firmly believed till either experience disapproved their inventions or the sincere knowledge of Religion inlightning their darknesse made them to forsake their former vain errors which I would to GOD had come sooner unto them that so they might never have sinned or else being now come unto us their children I pray GOD that it may never be removed lest by trusting in lying vanities we forsake our own mercy And so an end of the Magical Uses Now we proceed to the Medicinal in the biting of every venomous creature Frogs sod or roasted are profitable especially the broth if it be given to the sick person without his knowledge mixed with Oyl and Salt as we have said already The flesh of Water frogs is good against the biting of the Sea-hare the Scorpion and all kinde of Serpents against Leprosie and scabs and rubbed upon the body it doth cure the same The broath taken into the body with roots of Sea-holm expelleth the Salamander so also the Egges of the Frog and the Egges of the Tortoise hath the same operation being sod with Calaminth The little Frogs are an antidote against the Toads and great Frogs Albertus also among other remedies prescribeth a Frog to be given to sick Faulkons or Hawks It is also good for cricks in the neck or the Cramp The same sod with Oyl easeth the pains and hardnesse of the joynts and sinews they are likewise given against an old Cough and with old Wine and sod Corn drunk out of the Vessel wherein they are sod they are profitable against the Dropsie but with the sharpest Vinegar Oyl and spume of Niter sod together by rubbing and anointing cureth all scabs in Horses and pestilent tumors There is an Oyl likewise made out of Frogs which is made in this manner they take a pound of Frogs and put them into a vessel or glasse and upon them they pour a pinte of Oyl so stopping the mouth of the glasse they seethe it as they do the Oyl of Serpents with this they cure the shrinking of the sinews and the hot Gout they provoke sleep and heal the inflammations in Fevers by anointing the Temples The effect of this Oyl is thus described by Serâ—nus Saepe ita per vadit vis frigoris ac tenet artus Vt vix quasito medicamine pulsa recedat Si renam ex â—leo decoxeris abjice carnâ—m Membra fove That is to say Often are the sinews held by force invading cold Which scarse can be repelled back by medicines tried might Then scethe a Frog in purest Oyl as Ancients us have told So bathe the members sick therein Frogs flesh cast out of sight And again in another place he speaking of the cure of the Fever writeth thus Sed prius est oleo partus fervescere Ranae In triviis illâ—que artus perducere succo In English thus But first let Oyl make hot young Frogs new found In ways therewith bring sinews weak to weal full sound To conclude it were infinite and needlesse to expresse all that the Physitians have observed about the Medicines rising out of the bloud fat flesh eyes heart liver gall intrails legs and sperm of Frogs besides powders and distillations therefore I will not weary the Reader nor give occasion to ignorant men to be more bold upon my writing of Physick then is reason lest that be said against me which proverbially is said of unnecessary things Ranis vinum ministras you give Wine to Frogs which have neither need nor nature to drink it for they delight more in water And so I conclude the History of this vulgar Frog Of the GREEN FROG THis Frog is called Calamites and Dryophytes and Manâ—is and Rana virens In Arabia bâ—eâ—haricon and Cucunoines and Cucumones Irici Ranulae Brexantes of Brexâ—ein to rain and thereof cometh the faigned word of Aristophanes Brekekekex Koax but I think that as our English word Frog is derived from the German word Frosch so the Germans Frosch from the Greek word Brex It is called also Zamia that is Damnum losse hurt or damage because they live in trees and many times harm Men and Cattle underneath the trees and therefore called Zamiae of the Greek word Zen 〈…〉 The Italians call it Racula Ranocchia Lo Ronovoto Ra 〈…〉 onchia de rubetto The French Croissetz and some-times Graisset Verdier in Savöy Renogle In Germany Louâ—srosch In Poland Zaba Tâ—awna Some of the Latines for difference sake call it Rana Rubeta because it liveth in trees and bushes and for the same cause it is called Calamites because it liveth among reeds and Dryopetes because it selleth some-times out of trees It is a venomous Beast for sometimes Cattle as they brouse upon trees do swallow down one of these upon the
Serpentem baculumque neribus ambit Perspice usque nota visum ut cognoscere possis Vertar in hunc sed major ero tantusque videbor In quantum verti coelestid corpora possunt Which may be Englished thus Fear not for I will come and leave my shrine This Serpent which doth wreath with knots about this staffe of mine Mark well and take good heed thereof for into it tranformed will I be But big too I will be for I will seem of such a size As wherein may celestial bodies turn suffice But all Poets are so addicted to faigning that I my self may also seem while I imitate them to set down fables for truth and if ever there were such a Snake as this it was Diabolical and therefore in nature nothing to be concluded from it and in that place of Rome called Biremis and Triremis was Aesculapius worshipped And at this day in the Gardens called S. Bartholomews-Gardens there is a Marbleship on the side whereof is the figure of a creeping Snake for the memory of this fact as writeth Gyraldus But in the Emblems and documents of the ancient heathen it is certain that Aesculapius and the Snake and the Dragon did signifie health and from hence it came to have the name of the Holysnake and also to be accounted full of medicine The true occasion in nature was for that about the Countries of Bortonia and Padua they have a Snake which they call Bisse and Bisse-angua sanca and about Padua Autza which they say is harmlesse And as well children as men do often take up the same into their hands with no more fear and dread then they would do a Coney or any other tame and meek creature By the relation of Pellinus it is in length five spans and five fingers the head also compared with the body is long and in the neck thereof are two blanches and betwixt them a hollow place the back part whereof is attenuated into a thin and sharp tail and upon either chap they have many teeth which are sharp and without poyson for when they bite they do no more harm then fetch bloud only and these men for oftentation fake wear about their necks and women are much terrified by them in the hands of wanton young boys The back of this Snake as writeth Erastus is blackish and the other parts green like unto Leeks yet mixed with some whitenesse for by reason it seedeth upon herb it beareth that colour They are also carryed in mens bosoms and with them they will make knots For the same Erastus affirmeth that he saw a Fryer knit one of them up together like a garter but when he pulled it harder then the Snake could bear it turned the head about and bit him by the hand so as the bloud followed yet there came no more harm for it was cured without any medicine and therefore is not venomous In the Mountain of Maur 〈…〉 ia called Ziz the Snakes are so familiar with men that they wait upon them at dinner time like Cats and little Dogs and they never offer any harm to any living thing except they be first of all provoked Among the Bygerons inhabiting the Pyrenes there be Snakes four foot long and as thick as a mans arm whith likewise live continually in the houses and not only come peaceably to their table but also sleep in their beds without any harm in the night-time they hisse but seldom in the day time and pick up the crums which fall from their tables Among the Northern people they have household Snakes as it were houshold Gods and they suffer them both to eat and to play with their Infants lodging them in the Cradles with them as if they were faithful Keepers about them and if they harm any body at any time they account it Pium piaculum a very divine and happy mischance But after they had received the Christian faith they put away all these superstitions and did no more foster the Serpents brood in detestation of the Devil who beguiled our first Parents in the similitude of a Serpent Yet if it happen at any time that a house be burned all the Snakes hide themselves in their holes in the earth and there in short space they so encrease that when the people come to re-edifie they can very hardly displant their number Plautus in his Amphitryo maketh mention of two named Snakes which descended from the clowds in a shower but this opinion grew from the fiction of the Epidaurian Snake which only by the Poets is described with a mane and a combe and therefore I will not expresse the Snakes to have a mane There is no cause why we should think all Snakes to be without poyson for the Poet hath not warned us in vain where he saith Frigidus ô pueri fugite hinc latet Anguis sub herba Which may be Englished thus Fly hence you boys as far as feet can bear Vnder this herb a Snake full cold doth lear For this cause we will leave the discourse of the harmlesse Snake and come to those which are no way inferior to any other Serpent their quantity and spirit being considered wherefore we are to consider that of Snakes which are venomous and hurtful there are two kindes one called the Water-snake the other the Land-snake The Water-snake is called in Greek Hydra Hydros Hydrales Karouros and Enhydris in Latine Natrix and Lutrix Munster calleth it in Hebrew Zepha and Avicen relateth certain barbarous names of it as Handrius Andrius and Abides and Kedasuderus Echydrus and Aspistichon The Germans call it Nater Wasser-nater and Wasser-schlange and they describe it in the manner as it is found in their Countrey which doth not very far differ from them of our Countrey here in England It is as they say in thicknesse like the arm of a man or childe the belly thereof yellow and of a golden colour and the back blackish-green and the very breath of it is so venomous that if a man hold to it a rod newly cut off from the tree it will so infect it that upon it shall appear certain little bags of gall or poyson And the like effect it worketh upon a bright naked sword if it do but touch it with the tongue for the poyson runneth from one end to the other as if it were quick and leaveth behinde a line or scorched path as if it had been burned in the fire And if this Serpent fortune to bite a man in the foot then is the poyson presently dispersed all over the body for it hath a fiery quality and therefore it continually ascendeth but when once it cometh to the heart the man falleth down dyeth And therefore the meetest cure is to hang the party so wounded up by the heels or else speedily to cut off the member that is bitten And that which is here said of the Water-snake doth also as properly belong the Land-snake seeing there is no difference
quite overthrown 〈…〉 because as we daily see that those creatures which live in the air will for the most part be suffocare and die in the water and contrariwise those that live in the water cannot endure the a 〈…〉 Yet hereupon it followeth not that if they be choked in the water that none at all will live in the water and the same reason is to be alleadged concerning the air Therefore it is no marvail if those Worms that first breed in the earth and live in the earth be killed by the Snow yet it necessarily followeth not that no living creature can take his first being either from or in the snow But if it can as Aristotle witnesseth it is so far unlikely that the same Snow should be the destroyer of that it first was bred of as I think rather it cannot live separately but of necessity in the same Snow no otherwise then fishes can live without water from which they first sprung and had their beginning And to this opinion leaneth Theophrasius in his first Book De Causis Plantarum whose words be these Apanta gar phaâ—n tai ta zoa kai ta phuta kai diamenònta kai genomena en tois orkuiois topois For all creatures saith he whatsoever seem both plants to remain and to be generated and bred in their own due and proper places And after this he addeth and urgeth a little further Aparthe men hupo touton from his own home and special particular place of abode nothing can suffer sustain harm or be corrupted And in his fift Book De caus Plan. he setteth it down more perspicuously how that Worms which are bred in some special trees being afterward translated and changed to other trees where they never came before cannot possibly live Wherefore it is more consonant to reason and more agreeable to common sense to affirm that those Worms which are found folded and rolled up in the Snow to have been first bred in the same Snow rather then to have issued out of the earth Neither are we to make any question or scruple concerning their food for there is no doubt but the mother from whence they proceeded will provide sufficient nourishment for her own children For as we said a little before the Snow is no simple thing but compacted and concrete together of many and of this nature ought every aliment to be Julius Caesar Scaliger is of this minde that Worms are ingendered and brought forth in the very Snow because there is in it much air and spirit which afterwards being heated and brought to some warmth together may cause them to generate for it is the nature and quality of Snow to make fat the earth of which fattish moisture or Jelly there may heat being joyned be produced a living creature There be some that do constantly hold that in the midst of certain stones of which they use to make Lime there do breed divers creatures of very different kindes and sundry proportions and shapes and likewise Worms with hairy backs and many feet which are wont to do much hurt to Furnaces and Limbeckils where they make Lyme Yet Caesalpinus in his first Book De Metal chap. 2. thinketh the contrary assuring us that in Metal-mines Quarries of Marble and other stones there can never any living body be found And yet in Rocks of the Sea within the hollow places and rifts of the stones they do commonly finde certain small living things called Dactili I do not doubt whatsoever he saith to the contrary but that many creeping and other living creatures may be found both in the secret Mines of stone and sometimes also amongst Metals although it be seldom seen And for confirmation hereof I will alleadge one example happening not many years since in our own Countrey At Harlestone a mile from Holdenby in Northamptonshire there was a Quarry of free stone found out of which they digged for the building of Sir Christopher Hattons house where there was taken up one being a yard and a half square every way at the least and being cloven asunder there was found in the very midst of it a great Toad alive but within a very short space after comming to the open air it dyed This stone amongst others was taken very deep out of the earth it was split and cut asunder by one whose name is Lole an old man yet living at this day it was seen of five hundred persons Gentlemen and others of worthy repute and esteem the most part of them living at this hour whose attestation may defend me in this report and surely if Toads may live in the midst of stones I can see no reason but that Worms may there be found but as yet I could never see it In the year of Grace 970. at what time Romualdus the son of Sergius a young Monk was advanced by the Nobility of Ravenna to be their Archbishop there followed a great death and murrein among Earth-worms after that again ensued scarsity and death of all fruits of the earth as Carolus Sigonius in his Chronicle of the Kingdom of Italy declareth Henry Emperor of Rome the son of the Emperour Henry the third as Crantzius hath written when he took his voyage into Italy being suddenly stayed of his intended course with an Army sent against him by Matild that he should passe no further then Lombardy yet having taken Mutina there appeared a strange and uncouth sign in the air for an innumerable company of Worms smaller and thinner then any Flies did flie about in the air being so thick that they might be touched with any small stick or wand and sometimes with the hand so that they covered the face of the earth one mile in breadth and darkned likewise the air two or three miles in length Some did interpret it as a sign or fore-telling that some Christian Prince should go into the Holy-land In the year of our Lord God one thousand one hundred and four there were seen divers fiery and flying Worms in the air in such an infinite multitude that they darkened the light of the Sun seeming to deprive mens eye-sight thereof and shortly after this monstrous and unnatural wonder there followed other strange and seldom-seen prodigious sights on the earth and what a boisterous storm of troubles and raging whirl-winde of War and bloud-shed shortly after ensued the event thereof did plainly manifest FINIS A Physical Index containing plentiful Remedies for all Diseases incident to the Body of Man drawn from the several Creatures contained in this First Volum A. ABortion 92. 104. 165 498. 504. 534. Acâ—es 27. 148. 178. 346. 347 378. 499. 504. Acorus good against poison 718. Agues 21 34 75 84. 93. 198. 201. 202. 215. 216. 338. 346. 378. 379. 385. 402. 500. 504 505. 506. 5032. 536. 546. 566. 582. 655. 676. 695 750. 788. ibid. ibid 789. 810. 814. Alopecia 178 ibid. 196. 200. 204. 401. 455. 500. 568. 219. 645. Almonds swoln 500. Amiantes what it is 749.
stormy weather they carry a stone to poise and ballance their light bodies lest the impetuous violence of the wind should drive them from their houses and therefore we need not give credit to Lucian that they ought to be called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 footlesse creatures They do not breath by Pliny's favour but pant and are refreshed by transpiration Their stomach is framed of the most thin membrane wherein they not only conserve and keep their collected honey but concoct and purifie it which is the reason that Bees honey may be kept longer then any Manna or aerial body or rather is altogether incorruptible as we will shew hereafter Aristotle 9. Hist cap. 10. saith that there are nine kindes of Bees six whereof are sociable and do live together as Bees the Kings of Bees Drones Wasps Hornets Moths Also three solitary and insociable the greater Siren the lesser Siren and the Bumble-Bee of which kinde Simius Albertus does reckon up nine but gives them such harsh and barbarous names that it seems he rather faigned them than knew them Lib. 8. tract 4. cap. 2. But Bees do differ and are distinguished in regard of their matter form wit disposition and office and these are all their genuine and natural differences which I have collected out of infinite Authors Concerning their matter if we may credit the curious searchers into the works of nature some of them are called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or the Lions brood others 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Bulls brood and some 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or the Oxe brood and some 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or the Calves brood But the best and noblest bees are generated and bred out of the Lion and the Kings and Princes of them do derive their pedegree and descent from the brain of the Lion being the most excellent part of his body it is no wonder therefore if they proceeding and coming from so generous a stock do assail the greatest beasts and being endued with a Lion-like courage do fear nothing The noblest Bees next unto these are those that are generated out of the Bull being also a strong and valiant beast the excellency both of their disposition and bodies being equal to their stock and pedegree The next are the Cow-Bees or Oxe-Bees which are indeed very industrious laborious and profitable but of a milder disposition and lesse inclinable to anger The Calves carkasse doth generate more soft and tender Bees excellent makers of honey but not able to endure labour in regard of their tendernesse and in regard of the weaknesse of their matter short lived Some also do write that Bees may be bred out of their own ashes sprinkled with honey and laid forth in the sun or some warm place which sort may be called in Greek 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Self-begetters Bees of the best shape are small variously coloured round and bending the worser shaped are long The difference of their formes and shapes ariseth from four causes Nature place sexe and age For some are domestick or house Bees others are wilde or wood Bees these delight in the familiarity and company of men but not the other which do exercise themselves in making honey in trees clefts and crannies of the earth and in the rubbidge of old houses and walls Again some of the tame and gentler sort of Bees do live in pleasant gardens decked and beautified with all sorts of flowers these are great soft fat and large bellied others are kept in villages going far for their food and feed on flowers they light upon by chance The lesser more hairy yet for their work industry and skill they exceed the other Of both kindes some are bred with stings as all true Bees are and others without stings as the bastard Bees which have a greater and softer belly throat and body but not famous either for manners or ingenuity They call this kinde of Bee the Drone because they seem to be laborious and are not or because under the colour of labour for they sometimes carry wax and diligently fashion their combs they devour the honey And these are of a black shining colour and larger bodied Moreover some bees are descended from their Kings and Dukes whereof Aristotle maketh two kindes The yellow which is the best and the black streaked Others do reckon three Kings differing in colours black red and spotted or streaked Menecrates doth report that the divers coloured are an inferior sort of Bees but those streaked and diversified with black are the better All of them are twice as big as other Bees He that is elected Monarch or King of the whole Swarm is alwaies of an excellent shape and twice as big as any of the rest his wings are shorter his thighs straight and strong his gate loftier his aspect more stately and majestical and on his forhead a white spot like a shining Diadem or Crown differing much from vulgar Bees in regard of his shining colour But the place doth alter sometimes their form and sometimes their nature sex also and age do change them in both respects For in the Molucco Islands Bees are like to winged Ants but some-what lesser than the greater sort as Maximilianus Transylvanus in his Epistle to the Bishop of Salispurg eloquently relateth In America near the Rivers of Vasses and Plate the Bees are not like ours being no bigger than those small flies which trouble us in summer they build their nests in hollow trees and they make far greater combs and fuller of holes the end or tip of their wings as Oviedus and Thevetus relate seem to be bitten or cut off in the middle whereof they have a white spot and they have no offensive stings The wax which they make is of a duskish pitchy colour and they are for the most part evil conditioned Aristotle lib. 5. hist cap. 22. mentioneth a certain kinde of Bee that is of a soft industrious nature which maketh honey twice in a moneth being of a gentle pleasing disposition and busied only in making of honey Such there are also in the Countrey of Peru which do make a soft and melting kinde of honey which do stop their doors so close with wax that they leave but a very small hole for their ingresse or egresse But almost all our Bees in Europe are of a blackish colour not so much in regard of the easie concoction of thin substance than that they seem to be of a grosser diet and of a thicker composure and therefore the thicker matter doth remain within the skin which the Bees of Peru and Pontus by reason of their thin skins and the finenesse of their dewy nourishment do easily thrust forth unlesse that be the cause we must ascribe the variety of colour to wanton nature as we do for white bears and white black-birds which seeing she her self is various and of many shapes it is no wonder since she delights in variety of colours that she hath not made all Bees of
reason of the dulnesse of their sight cannot fly so freely Sundry kindes of remedies against slies Ruellius upon Hippocrates as also Apollonius and Brixtus have prescribed more remedies against slies Now after what manner Flies do execute the Justice of God let us briefly set down No Age but will speak of that famous Army of Flies with which that great Lord of Hosts of heaven and earth did of old correct the fury of Pharaoh and of the Aegyptians being joyned with hardnesse of hart and yet the wicked Hypocrite did not come to himself but wallowing still in the miâ—e of sâ—n without any sense did afterwards invite greater and more grievous judgements to fall upon him And that proud young gallant who would needs ride to heaven upon his winged stead was dismounted and cast down by the Fly called Oestrum Hercules also although exceeding in strength the Poets inform that he was almost vanquished by slies In the time of K. Rivallus when as corruption of manners and guilt had infected Britany there came down from heaven showres of bloud and those being dried away did produce swarms of poysoned Flies who if they did but once bire any man he presently died as our Annals report Nicolaus Albanepolitanus an English man being elected Pope in the year 1154. called by the name of Hadrian the fourth was choaked with a Fly flying into his mouth Vrspergensis Others say that he was killed with drinking a draught of water in which a fly was drowned and that by the just judgement of God who excommunicated Frederick Cesar whose surname was Barbarossa or Ae 〈…〉 barba and did incense all the Princes of Italy against him Nauclerus out of Johannes Cremonensis An ancient writer reports also that the Army of Julian the Apostate was grievously infested with mighty swarms of flies and Grillus saith that the Megarenses were by them driven from their habitation In the year 1348. great numbers of flies dropping out of the air did cause in the Eastern Countreys incredible noisomnesse and putrefaction upon which followed such a Plague among the people that scarce the tenth man among them was left alive In the year 1091. wonderful store of strange flies did fly up and down many Countreys who did sundry waies hurt the grasse trees cattel and men also Cranzius In the year 1143. a sort of fly about the bignesse of the common sort of flies only of somewhat a longer body did so fill the air that for many miles together the Sun could not be seen which were also very troublesome Vrspergensis In the year 1285. Charles King of France leading an Army into Spain and making war with Peter King of Aragon an Army of huge flies of divers colours set upon the French and slew them with their beaks as it had been with swords Marineus Siculus l. 11. de Hisp Reg. In the year 1578. about the middle of August upon the top of the Temple of Brumbium there sare every year a swarm of flies which made such a noise with their wings as if they would throw down the â—oof Timethy Bright told this to Pennius a Physician a man both learned and vertuous and of no small note with us Hither may be referred that which Strabo reports lib. Georg. 3. That amongst the Romans a Plague did often happen by reason of them insomuch that they were fain to hire men of purpose to catch them who were payed according to the quantity more or lesâ—e that they caught But how greatly they annoy the inhabitants of Africk Apulia Spain Italy and the West-Indies how grievously they sting and wound the Carthaginians and the inhabitants of Hispaniola besides Oviedus let those Englishmen speak who accompanied that flower of Knighthood and Maul of the Spanish pride Francis Drake As for those things which Apollonius Fulgesus and Pliny fabulously and superstitiously relate concerning Flies I thought them unworthy of this place and therefore those flies called Pisatides Cypriae Eliades Acteae and the rest of meer invention I pass by It shall not be from the matter to tax in brief the madnesse of the ancient Gentiles that we may thereby be taught to lift up our eyes to the true 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the God that doth indeed keep flies away from us It is said of Hercules in performing divine Worship whereas he was almost killed by the Flies that he offered sacrifice to Jupiter called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or the Flyway-driver by which means they were presently dispatcht into the River Alphaeus from whence he was afterwards called by the name of Muscarius or Fly-killer The Elâ—ans did invocate Myagrus and Myades that multitude of Flies might not cause a plague amongst them Pliny He relates also how the Cyrenaicks were wont to worship Achor the god of Flies that by his means they might be secured from being troubled with them Pliny more truly might have read this name Acaron or Ithekron in stead of Achor if he had heard of the Town Acaron where Bahal-zebub i. e. the god of Flies that famous Idol used to be worshipped Vrspergeusis saith that the Devil did very frequently appear in form of a Fly whence it was that some of the Heathens called their familiar spirit Musca or Fly perchance alluding to that of Plautas Hic pol musca est mi pater Sive profanum sive publicum nil clam illum haberi potest Quin adsit ibi illico rem omnem tenet This man O my Father is a Fly nothing can be concealed from him be it secret or publick he is presently there and knowes all the matter But away with those false and filthy gods which the Greeks therefore called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 because they did serve for bugbears perhaps for children and ignorant and heathenish people which we that are Christians and professe the true Creator of all things ought not at all to regard There is also said to be another use of flies For Plutarch in his Artaxerxes relates that it was a law amongst a certain people that whosoever should be so bold as to laugh at and deride their Lawes and constitutions of state was bound for twenty daies together in an open chest naked all besmeered with honey and milk and so became a prey to the Flies and Bees afterward when the daies were expired he was put into a womans habit and thrown headlong down a mountain which place of Plutarch by the Translators leave I think should be interpreted not Ciphone vinctus but unctus Ciphi anointed with sweet smelling oyntment Of which kinde of punishment also Suidas makes mention in his Epicurus There was likewise for greater offenders a punishment of Boats so called For that he that was convict of high Treason was clapt between two Boats with his head hands and feet hanging out for his drink he had milk and honey powred down his throat with which also his head and hands were sprinkled then being set against the Sun he drew to him abundance of stinging
will stand to the judgement of Hippocrates that women are more â—ot than men but if they be not so yet it must needs be acknowledged that the female Grashoppers are more hot than the male because under the midriffe they are not so divided but the males in that place were it not for that little membrane to hinder they might easily be blown through Nature certainly intended by denying a voice to the females of these Grashoppers to teach our women that lesson 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 what ornament silence brings to the female sex They begin first of all to sing about the latter end of the Spring the Sun being 〈◊〉 past the Meridian and perchance in hotter Countreys sooner where quickseâ—s or thickeâ—s are 〈◊〉 rare there they live more happily and sing more willingly For they are of all creatures the least melancholy and for that reason they do affect not only green and pleasant 〈…〉 es but 〈…〉 on and open fields Yea they are not to be found in those places where there are no trees at all nor where there are too many and too shady Hence it comes to passe saâ—tâ— Arist that aâ— Cyrene in none of the fields there is there any Grashoppers to be found whereas near the Town they are frequently heard They shun also cold places indeed they cannot live in them They love the Olive tree because of the thinness of the bough and narrowness of the leaves whereby they are lesse shady They never alter their place as neither doth the Stork or at least very seldome or if they do they are ever after silent they sing no more so much doth the love of their native soyl prevail with them In the Countrey of Miletus saith Pliny they are seldome seen In the Island Cepholenia there runs a River on the one side whereof there is plenty of them on the other in a manner none that which I should take to be the cause is either the want of trees or the too much abundance or else a certain natural antipathy of the soyl as Ireland neither brings forth not breeds any venomous creature for the same reasons they do not fancy the Kingdome of Naples although Niphus relates that to be done by the enchantment of one Maro Timaeus that writeth the History of Sicily reports that in the Countrey of Locris on the hither side of the River Helicis they are marvellous loud on the other side toward the city of Rhegium there is scarce one to be heard they are not therefore silent because Hercules prayed against them for disturbing him of his sleep as Solinus fabulously relates but because they are more merry and jocond at home as the Cock is whence it is that the Locrian Grashoppers will not sing at Rhegium nor theirs on the contrary near Locris and yet there is but a small river runs between them such a one as one may cast a stone over Much certainly doth their Countrey which comprehends in it all the love that may be move them where like the people of the Jewes they refuse to sing their native Songs in a strange Countrey who being cast out of their own habitation seek means to die rather than waies to live so prodigal seem they of their short life and desirous after their native dwelling They do so affect the company of men that unless they see fields full of Mowers or harvest folk and the waies with passengers they sing very low and seldome or silently and to themselves But if once they hear the reapers making merry talking and singing which is commonly at noon then they sing so loud as if they strove who should sing loudest together with them Wherefore not undeservedly was the Parasice in Athenaeus called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 who being naturally obstemious by nature yet was so full of talk as if he strove that no body should be heard at the table but he Socrates in his Phaedro recites the History of the Grashoppers very wittily warning men not to sleep in the heat of the day lest the Grashoppers mock them for the Poets report how their diligence was highly rewarded For they â—ay that the Grashoppers before the Muses were were men who afterwards when the Muses came taught them to sing but some of them were so delighted with musick and singing that altogether neglecting their meat and drink inconsiderately they perished the which afterwards being turned into Grashoppers the Muses gave them that for a reward that they should be able to live even in the heat of the day without meat or drink neither to have any need of bloud or moisture They couple and generate with creatures of the same kinde as Aristotle tels us and the male casts his seed into the female which she accordingly receives they bring forth in fallow grounds hollowing it with that sharp picked hollow part of their tail as the Bruchus doth and therefore there is great plenty of Grashoppers in the Countrey of Cyrene Also in reeds wherewith the vines are propped they make hollow a place for their nest and sometimes they breed in the stalk of the herb Squilla but this brood soon fals to the ground This is also worth the notice which Hugo Solerius writing upon Aetius affirmeth that the Grashoppers dye with bringing forth the ventricle of the female being rent asunder in the birth the which some being very much deceived therein do report of the Viper the which I exceedingly marvel at For they lay white eggs and do not bring forth a living creature as the field mouse doth unless it be by reason of weakness of the egge comes a little worm of that comes a creature like to the Aurelia of the Butterfly which is called Tettigometra at what time they are very delicate meat to be eaten before the shell be broken afterwards about the Solstices in the night come forth of that matrix the Grashoppers all black hard and somewhat big When they are thus got out those that are for the quicksets betake themselves thither those that live amongst the corn go and sit upon that at their departue they leave behinde them a little kinde of moisture not long after they are able to take wing and they begin to sing That therefore which Solerius feigneth concerning the bursting of the womb of the mother I should conceive to be understood of the matrixes A certain woman did bring up some young Grashoppers for her delight sake and to hear them sing which became with young without the help of the male if we may believe Arist 1. l. de hist anim but since he hath told us that all the females of Grashoppers are mute by nature and this spontaneous impregnation is far from truth either the woman deceived Aristotle or he us There is another kinde of Generation of Grashoppers that we read of For if clay be not dug up in due time it will breed Grashoppers so saith Paracelsus and before him Hesychius For this cause Plato saith
Grashoppers were of old time men born of the earth but by the favour of the Muses turned into that Musical sort of creatures the Grashoppers Even at this day sustaining their lives with no other food than dew and feeding themselves by continual â—inging they live For this cause the Athenians were called Tettigophori because they wore golden Grashoppers for ornament in their hair and for a token of their nobility and antiquity as Thucidides 1. Syngraph and Heraclides Ponticus de priscis Atheniensibus testifie Erytheus makes a proof of this custome being born of the earth as they say who first governed the Common-wealth of the Athenians and they too in the judgement of Plato the Natives were 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. e. born of the earth Afterwards it came to be a custome that none but an Athenian or one born in the place might wear a Grashopper in his hair of this opinion is Aristoph as also his Scholiast Iâ—idore saith that the Cuckow-spittle doth generate Grashoppers which is not true but that it produceth small Locusts is manifest Lucretius in his 4 Book saith that the Grashopper in the Summer doth shift his skin according to this verse Cum veteres ponunt tunicas aestate Cicada And for that reason he is called by Hesychius 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. e. the naked Grashoppers or without a skin whom I should not have believed unless I had the picture of the skin so cast off by me Before Copulation the Males are of the more delicate taste afterwards the females for that they have in them white eggs very pleasant to the palat The Parthians as Pliny writeth and the rest of the eastern Nations feed upon them not only for nutrition sake but to open their veins and to stir up their languishing appetite as Atheneus in his 4. Book and Natalis Comes expresly affirm Hence Aristophanes in his Anagyrus out of Theocritus writes that the gods did feed upon Grashoppers at what time they had lost their appetite through choler or passion I have seen saith Aelian l. 12. c. 6. those that sold them tyed in bundles together for men to eat to wit the most voracious of all living creatures did sell the most jejune lest any thing should be lacking to their exquisite dainties Dioscorides gave rosted Grashoppers to eat and saith they are very good against the diseases of the bladder Some saith Galen use dryed Grashoppers for the Colick they give according to the number 3 5 or 7 grains of Pepper as well when it goes off as when it comes on Trallianus bids to give them for the Stone dried and beaten the wings and feet first of all taken away and this to be done in a bath with sweet Wine and Hippocrass Aegineta useth them dryed for the Stone in the reins and for the diseases of the reins he invented the composition called Diatettigon Such another like Antidote doth Myrepsus prescribe but all heads and feet as supervacaneous members being cast away Luminaris hath transcribed an Electuary out of Nicolaus of this sort Take Grashoppers their heads and legs cast away two ounces Grommel seed Saxifrage seed each 1 ounce Pepper Galanga Cinnamon of each 2 drams Lignum Aloes half a dram honey what is sufficient Nicolaus useth Grashoppers burned and powdered mingled with honey and gives them about the bigness of a bean in a quantity of wine Aetius gives three Grashoppers beat in Wine Some in stead of Cantharides use Grashoppers to provoke urine and in my judgement not without very good reason for they are taken with lesse danger and do work sooner as well in this disease as in the weakness of venery Nonus the Physician prescribes an Antidote of Grashoppers and Xenophyllum against the Stone in the kidneys Aretaeus for the remedies of the bladder speaks thus of Grashoppers The best remedy for the bladder is a Grashopper given in its time to eat Males before copulation but afterwards Females as we finde in Aristotle but out of their time dried and powdered boyl them with water and a little spike also let the patient sit in the same for a bath to ease the pains of the bladder Some of our later practitioners put Grashoppers in oyl and set them in the Sun and mingle them with oyl of Scorpions and anoint the privities of men and women the testicles and parts about with it for pains of the bladder Arnoldus Breviar l. 1. c. 20. 32. commends the powder of Grashoppers for the Colick and Iliack passion and also to drive forth the Stone if half a Grashopper in powder be drank with Goats bloud or Diuretick wine Lauframus highly esteems the ashes of Grashoppers to break the Stone taken with Radish water or the decoction of chich Pease Also they cause idle and lazy boyes to hunt after them Theocritus speaks thus of it in his first Idyllium Hee with thin ears of corn bound to a cane did make A whip for Grashoppers to hunt and take Neither are they only excellent meat and very usefull in Physick to men but they feed Birds also and insnare them For the youth of Crete as Bellonius witnesseth hide a hook in the body of a Grashopper and when they have fastned it to a line they cast it up into the air which the Merops seeing catch it and swalloweth which when the boyes perceive they draw it to them and so do exercise their air-fowling not without profit and pleasure The Grashoppers abounding in the end of the Spring do foretel a sickly year to come not that they are the cause of putrefaction in themselves but only shew plenty of putrid matter to be when there is such store of them appear Oftentimes their coming and singing doth pottend the happy state of things so Theocritus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Niphus saith that what year but few of them are to be seen they presage dearness of victuals and scarcity of all things else But whereas Jo. Langius a Philosopher of great reading and learning and a famous Physician saith lib. 2. epist that Grashoppers did eat the corn in Germany as the Locusts do Stumsius that it was done in Helvetia Lycosthenes lib. prodig and the Greek Epigram doth affirm that they eat the fruits and crop the herbs truly unless they mean a Locust in stead of a Grashopper they declare a strange thing and saving the credit of so famous men I will not believe for they have neither teeth nor excrement as hath been said but only feed and swell with the dew Besides although I have gone over all Helvetia Germany and England and have searcht for a Grashopper as for a needle yet could I fâ—nde none And therefore I suppose that both they themselves as also Guill de Conchy and Albert. Vincentius to have mistaken the Locust or Bruchus for the Grashopper being deceived by the common error who take the one for the other They that desire more of their nature and use may consult the Authors
c. These hurt especially great trees as the Oak the Pear-tree the Apple-tree the Chesnut the Larch Walnut Beech the Medlar the Elm and broad leafed Willowes in which cut unseasonably or planted a â—oft and ill fatty humour breeds which Wood-men call the sap and the white which is the matter and nourishment of all the Teredines Trees that are drier more bitter more oily and hard are thought to be so much the freer from these Worms yet some-times they will offer violence to the Cypress-tree the Walnut the Guaiacum the Tiele-tree and to Ebony it self The manner of their breeding in wood is thus Many are bred within and do not come from without and they eat up their original that of what they were bred they may live by the same The material and conjunct cause is the sweet moisture of wood that is fit for their nourishment being corrupted even as of sweet flegm worms are bred in the belly Now that sweet humour purrenes from a twofold cause either by distemper or solution of continuity By distemper the quality is corrupted and by cutting not only the inbred humour runs forth but some strange humour enters by rain and mists and corrupts the wood In old spongy and dry trees by reason of age are the greater Worms both because the radical moisture is more diminished and because the distemper heat and moisture that are strangers are more augmented as oft-times old men are troubled with cruel scabs and eating sores and Worms Wood lying open to the Moon in the night sooner breeds Worms because of the over much moisture of the air and in the hotter Sun from too much heat Those that breed within breed at all times but for those that come from without and are bred of the seed of Gnats and Flies the Spring and Summer are the chief times for them for in Winter they are frozen and dye Also the climate and the ground aâ—e of great force for the Irish wood seldome corrupts there is such vertue in the ground and in Arabia in the climate Now we shall describe the particulars Of those Worms that are in Fig-trees some are bred of the trees themselves and another is bred withall that is called Cerastes For since the greatest part of Worms do differ in shape and form one from another yet the principal difference amongst them is this that those which are bred in one kinde of tree or fruit if they be translated to another kinde they will not live yet men affirm that Cerastes is bred in the Olive-tree and will breed in the Fig-tree wherefore the Fig-tree hath its Worms and sends forth those also that it receives from other trees yet they are all like to Cerastes and they make a small shrill sound Sypontinus saith he hath two horns on his head when he hath eaten the place so hollow that he can well turn himself he begets another little creature and changeth one kinde into another as Catterpillers do The Service tree is infested with red Worms and hairy and then it dyes Also the Medlar-tree being old produceth such Worms but they are greater then in other trees as Theophrastus writes The sap produceth a Worm like to a Thrips from whence Gnats and kindes of Phaleuci are bred wilde Pear-tree Worms some sort of living Creatures that feed on wood saith Hesychius for they extremely hurt wilde Pear-trees A little Worm in the Oke-like tree Suetonius calls it Galbus is wonderfull slender whence the first of the Sulpitii was called Galba from his extreme slendernesse The Palm-tree produceth the Carabus as Hesychius and Aristotle testifie a Worm like to Sea-lobsters having only six feet by this means the Carabick Worm of Hesychius is known Theophrastus writes that they cut off the small boughs of the Cinamon tree two fingers length and when they are green they sow them up in Ox-hides then they say that these boughs corrupting will breed Worms that eat the wood and will by no means touch the bark because it is sharp This wood was seen in Pennius his house eaten by a Worm that was of an Ash-colour it was not very hard but had neither taste nor smell contrary to that some Portingal Merchants and Quacksalvers that are ignorant of simples affirm The Worms called Raucae breed in the root of the Oak and hurt it Pliny faith an Olive-tree is ill planted where an Oake is dug up for the Worm Raucae left in the roots of the Oak creep into the roots of the Olive-tree and endamage them Johannes de Chaeul affirms the same The Ancients reckon up but few worms that feed on bark except the Scolopendrae Jâ—li and those Moths that are like little Scorpions whose nature we explained in the Chapter of the Scorpion The Germans call these Clopâ— they are not much greater than a Flea of a red colour with ten feet they are frequent in the wood and horses of the Muâ—covites built of Pine-tree in the day they feed on the moisture of the wood that sweats forth between the bark In the night they creep out and if they light upon men that are asleep they will suck out their bloud biting painfully The Worms called Syrones feed on the leaves and flowers of trees how small they are in thickness we may conjecture from this that it creeps between the membranes of the thinnest leaf digging and not hurting either outward skin Next to the Worms in vinegar saith Joach Came 〈…〉 us I never saw a Worm so compact The mines that it makes do sometimes represent the most fine lines and fibres They hurt exceedingly the leaves of the Cherry-tree and the Apple-tree that are spotted and when they are full they fall off and they seem to be formed of many Pompion-seeds glewed broad waies together but that they are far smaller From these when they are dead another small Insect ariseth as they grew from another 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 are like to Syrones which the English whether they breed in wood or bark leaf or flower or fruits of trees as in Cheese or Wax call Mites that is very little ones or Alomes they differ from Syrones by this that they seem to be made of many Acari But the Acarus it self is a round white six-footed little creature like to a little Lowse of almost no substance that if you press it violently between your fingers and your thumb it is so small that you cannot feel it nor hurt it Antigonus and Aristctle call it Jupiters Butler it may be because it will eat with its nib into the thickest Wine-cask And certainly if there were not something of God in it and of divine vertue how could we finde so great force in so little and almost no body Also in the leaves of the Beech little knots are found wherein there are small Worms The fruits of trees as Theophrastus saith are sometimes worm-eaten when they are yet green as we see in Services Medlers Pears and Apples The Olive both in the