saws some single The utmost above stand more inward then the rest by much Under the skin are sinewy small veins stretched out answering all the ribs in number and order the ribs are fourteen No membrane fleshly The muscles of the paunch are between the two tunicles of the rim which makes it seeme thicker and grosser as the horny-film of an Ox-ey fleshy in length by that line that answers the navell but not abroad and onely below The kell fastened to the stomack entralls and milt the milt very small hanging on the left side of the stomack and a part of the kell fastened to it The stomack bigger then ordinary for such a small body consisting of a doubled coat the outmost whiter the inmost smoother both thin The guts fastened behind to the back-bone by a thin skin No blind gut all uniforme The bladder very long thin but inclining more to the stomack The liver of seven films the weakest three-parted like a chicken-foot the middle three-cornerd annexed to the hollow vein a litle way by a thin skin The right Rein is higher The left Emulgens longer then the right both sprouting from the great artery not from the hollow-vein Yet I doubt of it By the hollow-vain are here and there reddish and yellow kernells the uppermost on the right side joyns to the liver by small veins The hollow vein sends many sprigs through the loyn-space of muscles to the back bone and the great artery lies under the hollow The seed-vessels descend from the midst of the reins but are parted in two on either side below one branch joyned to the stone reaching without the paunch The yard arising from strings of os sacrum is griâ—tly and hard as a bone writhed at top like an wimble-skind close sharp as a needle The right uritory sit higher into the bladder then the left a fine sinew comes strait down tied to the right side sit into the beginning of the hollow vein Also a small sinew on the left-side descends to the stomacks-mouth The hollow-hollow-vein is set into the right ventricle of the heart neare the right lappet which is black and full of blood and greater then the left this is white and bloodles hollow spreading on the right side into the lungs The great artery is set into the hearts left ventricle bending downward The hollow vain on the right passing a little above the lungs-branches it self into six springs rising to the lower jaw On the right side the lungs consist of foure lesser veins on the left of two greater They are most in the North and in the German-Alps Southward and toward Italy They inhabite the roofs of greater houses and beech and firre-woods A Boor told Gesner that in a very high firre-tree he tooke a Mattern and foure welps France hath no such Out of Poland are some brought of a slight dusk-colour Beside other Weezels-food they are said to eat shrubs their dung smels like Musk they are easily tamed Gesner had one that loved his dog that went about with him let loose shee would come to the chaine again and play with him like a cat lying on the back But there is no trusting them therefore some advise to take out their dog-teeth The skin is of use that under the throat makes caps good and wholsome for the head In Canada the women shew their babes in them There are two kinds one tamer of a dark yellow except a white part of the throat which curriers and skinners call Faina Bodies like a cat a litle longer and shorter legged It rooms about the country kills Hens and sucks their egs The other is wilde of a brighter and softer hair and a clay-coloured throat Some inhabite Beech and Oake and Holm-woods some pitch and firre-woods About the Bregantine Lake they shine by night The Zibelline Weezel or Satherius or Sebalus or the Sarmatick and Scythian-Mouse is somewhat lesse then the Mattern of a dark yellow all over except the throat which is ash-coloured Found in the North in the utmost woods of Moscovia in Lithuania white-Russia and neare the Cronion-Sea and in Laucerusa a wood of Scandinavia The Tartars and Laplanders send the best skins The Guinee story tells of store in a Province of Congo they lurke in shady Forrests and catch birds They are very nimble and restles It is said that if you lay the skin under other cloathes in a chest-bottome in three dayes it shall be found uppermost Handle them yet they remain even The long-haired and inclining to black are the best skins You spoyl them if you lay them in the Sun To keep them from the moth shake them oft and lay them up wrapped in wormwood they are very costly Agricola saw fourty sold for a thousand crowns Ambrosine a halfe sleeve trim'd therewith worth foure hundred pound of Bonony-money They of Obdoria offer this Mus-cats-skins to their Idol called Zlata Baba The great Cham of Tartary his Tents are said to be lined with them CHAPTER XII Of the Genetta and the Zibethus or Civet-Cat SOme conceive that Genetta being a Spanish name borrows the name from some place there Others call it a Spanish or Genet-Cat Some a lesser Panther The Oppians suppose it to be a lesser Wolf The whole body is handsomely marked with black spots The whole skin is of a soft and thick hair and downy breathing forth a not unacceptable sent It is found in Spain in waterish places where it seeks the food A winter halfe-sleeve furred therewith is sold for 25 nay 30 pound Bononian mony The Zibet unknown perhaps to the ancients is by the Greeks called Zapetion by others a Zibet-Cat or a Civet-cat a kind of Panther which the ancients thought the only well-sented beast this is thought the same with the Hyena of old It is armed with sharp teeth and hair An arme long from head to dock the legs to the feet a third part of an armes length Hee is about the bignes of a fox coloured like a wolf but black-spotted Hee carries a bag about his privities wherein lies the Civet that is so fragrant Hee hath a wide mouth like the Badger the tongue not quite so rough as a cats They are found in Pegu Congo China Cambaja and in the Ethiopian woods Brought also out of Egypt where they breed plentifully and out of Spain into Italy Hee loves raw flesh and field-mice Cardinal Galeotto feeds them at Rome with chicken-flesh In China hee eats sweet-meats and rice and egs and the sweet wood called Camaron if that be the beast Pigafetta mentions in his journall Scaliger hath seen them so tame at Rome and Mantua that men carry them harmlesly on their shoulders A Florentine Consul at Alexandria had one so gentle that hee played with men taking them by the nose ear lips teeth and did them no harm Ever fed from the first it was with womans breast-milk The sweet excrement lurking as afore is
purse or bag The bladder fastened above to the Peritonaeum and below to the streight gut The stones are covered with foure skins the outmost called scrotum the next dartos the third erythroides or the red the fourth is the inmost There is somewhat also considerable in the vessells preparing and conveying the seed c. Wee saw the uriteres descending from flat or hollow of the reins to the bladder-neck also the milk-veins tending toward the bunchy-part of the reins both sprouting from the body of the hollow-gut but the left is higher then the right and all most twice as long The straight-gut is tied to the beginning of the tayl by a middle-string it hath veines and sharp kernels Wee saw the mid-rif and meseraicks and sweet-breads being a kernelly substance Wee saw the blind-gut a thumb-breeth long the other guts are uniform but winding and brittle The reins large bigger then a great nut wherein are a few creeks through which the pisse is strained We saw the vein porta with it's meseraick and Spleen-branch hereout sprouts the coeliacus a branch compassing the stomack and conveys the melancholy humour thither to provoke appetite We saw the vein ascendent pearcing the mid-rif and reaching the heart and set into the right side thereof Wee saw the peerles vein-branched from the hollow vein by the heart and turning backagain and descending by the backbone on the right side which sends forth sprigs to the ribs to nourish them The liver is distinguished by six strings out of the midst of two of them on the right side goes the gall forth the bottome shews like a bolt-eye The gall-bag hath two branches the one passes from the liver to the duodenum carrying the dregs away The other running back to the bladder to be kept there In the duodenum foure fingers below the pores called cholidochi is found a worme little but of the bignes of the ureteries from the sides of the ascendent hollow veine descends a sinnew to the fleshy ringlet of the diaphragm and another on the left side proped with the thin skins of the sharp artery conveying feeling to the diaphragm We saw the turnagainsi news which propagated from the sixth conjugation of sinews are set in at the head of the sharp artery the one on the left turning upward about the great artery the other about the branches of the arterie tending toward the throte the heart with a double lappet on the right and left side the right is greatest and blackish the left of the colour of the heart The heart hath a right venticle to beget vitall spirits and a left one whether the vein-blood is conveyed and it hath foure large vessells the first is the hollow ascending vein which is set into the left eare the third the arteriall vein containing blood having a double coat whence it hath the name this is set into the lungs to nourish them The fourth is a vein-artery set into the left ventricle of the heart to convey to the brain blood prepared there to beget animal spirits In the right venticle are lappets or partitions which keep in the blood and so in the left The lungs have six fins Wee saw the inner-muscles about the larynx or the head of the sharp artery which being inflamed breed a squincy There are kernells in the yard like a Cats-tongue Wee marked the passage leading to the bladder The Cats brain-pan hath red streaks like veins the inner-eare is rarely fashioned whereof they have such use to listen and looked and prey by night Herein we marked the communion between the great artery and the great vein where the first parting is into the bowels I beleeve it is common to all living creatures what I observe in the tame Cats-back bone for with the own membranes it being covered at the end that which answer the hard menynx the inner sends forth nerves from it self but since there are companies of them like strings we note that they having passed a little way meet as in one knot as we in top of grain And since those severall strings are covered with the same skins if you strain one you spoyl the other till they come to the knot In one rib of the house cat was noted a round knob like a tree-knot the midst whereof being broken asunder was porose and full of pits with drops of blood My fellow dissecters doubted whether it was the breach of a bone in anatomizing or some error in the first shaping and superfluous stuffe In a man on the flat part of the forehead bone that lies between the two eybrows ly equally on the right root of the nose Bruize but that bone or peirce it you find two long pits passing sidelings above under the skull and below blind ones with partitions These are doubtlesse the chambers of smelling where the breath is as also in the ear which is but of late discovered That which strengthens my opinion is that in a hound these cells are broader and more conspicuous then in man dogs excelling in sent This is not found in a Monky perhaps because he needs not excell in that sense THE NATURALL HISTORY OF THE FOURFOOTED BEASTS THE FOVRTH BOOKE Of the Fourfooted Creatures that have toes and spring of an Egge THE FIRST TITLE Of the skined ones CHAPTER I. Of the Frog ARTICLE I. Of the VVater-Frogs THus far of the Fourfooted beasts that bring forth living broods those that lay egges follow These are either skined or shelled Those that are covered with skin are the Frog Lizard Salmander Chamaeleon Crocodile c. The Frog is either the water or Land-frog Called Rana either from the summer-croaking ra ra or the Hebrew 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is to cry out In Greek Batrachos from his shrill voyce and Boox c. By the Cypriots Brouchetos the Ionians Bathrakos the Phocians Brianchone by those of Pontus Babakos by the late Greeks Bordakos and Gurinos and Brinoi and Parphusides from their puffed-cheeks with croaking It is an Amphilium living both in water and on land afore not fleshy but behind the hinder-legs nature hath made thick and longer the fore-legs They have five toes long skined between to help their swimming The Shee is biggest they have no neck the belly white the tong as infants tied afore but loose by the throat the milt small the liver imparted into three laps whereunder on each side part of the lungs is seen frothy not very bloudy the guts knotly the testicles and other parts like those of other beasts In England are no green ones but they abound in Germany Italy especially in Bononia They swarm so in the waterish places of Egypt that they would destroy all if the storks did not devour them They are said to be dumb in the Island Seriphus and Cyrene perhaps because the water is cold They are in streams but delight in puddles where bulrushes reeds and sea-gras grows They are ever found
c. 1. testifies that they have bending joynts in the lower part of their hinde legs but as concerning the bending of their leggs some report otherwise as that they have no joynts but their legs is one entire bone which they cannot bend and that falling they cannot rise again But others as Pliny for one deliver that they have behind short joynts and within bending hams like a man and indeed experience hath taught us so much Their feet are round like a horsehoofe but broader the bottomes being some 18 inches round Vertoman likens them to a table-trencher form'd of an hard black wide skin Their toes are misshapen five in number but not parted and scarsely distinguisht the hoofs are not like claws They have two paps under their shoulders not on the breast but on the side it is hidden in the shoulder-pits Their Genital is like a horses but small no way answerable to their bulk Pliny saith that they gender averse the face turne from each other Their testicles are not seen outwardly but lurke within about the reins whence they engender the sooner Ctezias trifles in saying their seed is as dry and hard as amber Pliny saids they have foure bellies Aristotle that their gut is windding and turning that they seeme to have foure bellies and therein meat is found Galen makes it very wide and most like a horses their entralls resemble a swines Their liver is foure times as great as an oxes the rest of the inwards are answerable except the milt this is lesse then proportion would require Pliny makes their lungs foure times greater as an oxes Aristotle denies that he hath any gall in his liver yet if you cut that part where it uses to bide some gally moysture more or lesse will spurt out Galen also avers that there is choller in his bladder The same tooke a bone out of the heart of one that he cut up and he observes that it hath two ventricles in it and not three as Aristotle saith Whereof Aelian thus The Elephant is said to have a double heart and sense that by the one he is anger'd by the other appeased as the Moors report See the description of a couple in Aldrovandus They are found in Africk Asia and the neighbouring Islands And in Africk in a Forrest behind the Syrtes or quicksands in the deserts-bordering on Sala a Town of Mauritania in Lybia Getulia and the Forrests near mount Atlas c. The Symbari between the Arabian Mountains and the Nile live on the hunting of them There were huntings of them appointed by Ptolomaeus Philadelphus King of Aegypt in the Aethiopia of the Ophiophagi or Serpent-eaters As for Asia King of Parthia kept D. C C. King of Audata a 1000. The King of the Palibroti 9000. The King of Chrysaeum Parasanga Asanga had 300 armed In Taprobana are vaster and more warlike accounted then in India as Onesicritus a Governour under Alexander the Great relates In Zeilan are at this day very great ones and very ingenious The Siamensian King is said to keep 12000 whereof 4000 stand ever armed against any sudden surprizes and chances Under the great Mogul his command are 50000. In Mosambique Isle and in Benomotapa are found whole herds of them To the Isle Zanzibar also resort many Merchants to buy Yvory They delight much in moyst and marishy places they love rivers especially in hote countries for they can endure no cold As concerning their foed they feed on fennygraffe on leaves of trees on stumps the fruits of the mose-tree and on the roots of the Indian fig-tree They devour sometimes earth and stones But eating it brings them diseases unlesse they first chew it The tame ones are fed with barley and they will sometimes devour nine Macedonian bushels thereof at once There was one shewed at Antwerp that gobbled up foure bushels of apples on one day They write that they are much taken with musckmelons Water but muddy and troubled is their drink Wine also made of rice and other grain and so among us That at Antwerp souped up at once more then 16. pound and did that so often that it seems to come near the proportion whereof Aristotle writes Yet they can well bear thirst and can goe without drinking eight dayes together About their coupling the time and manners writers report diversly Pliny out of Aristotle saith the male begins at five years old the female at ten Aristotle assignes to both the 20 years and anotherwhile the twelfth to the female when soonest and the fifteenth when latest you shall find in Solinus that they couple averse from each other Horace of Canida agrees with him that the female sits then the male covers her See Albertus the Great and Aristotle about the circumstances the desire to couple in the water especially c. They never couple but in secret The male three years after seeks out the same female and never more after In two years they couple five dayes and no more saith Solinus out of Pliny nor returne they to their herd till they have wash'd themselves in fountain-water In coupling-time they rage most and â—â—row down the Indians stables It is also doubted how long the shee carries her burden Some say a year and six moneths some say three years some say ten Arist. H. A. l. 6. c. 27. writes two years Strabo 16 months at least at longest 18. Diod. Sic. and Aelian say the same Some say resolutely eight years They bring forth sitting on their hind legs with pain The Birth comes into the light with the head formost saith Aelian They bring but one at once as we read in Arist. and Diod. Sic. Every foure years one birth say Cadamustus and Scaliger The birth is as great as a grown hog or a calfe of three months As soon as it is brought forth it can see and goe and sucks with the mouth and not with the trunk They suck till they be eight years old They hold enmity with the Rhinoceros the Lyon Tiger Ram Hog Serpent Dragon they hate some colours and fire Of the Rhinoceros thus Pliny In Pompey his sports was a Rhinoceros seen A born enemy to the Elephant he whets his horn on the stones and prepares for fight wherein he aimes most at the belly which he knowes to be softest They are of equal height only the legs are somewhat shorter of one then the other Among the westerly Ethiopians the Lyons will fasten on the young Elephants and wound them but if the dame come they fly The Tiger flies at the Elephants head and with ease chokes him If he be in a raging fit the very sight of a Ram makes him gentle The grunting of a Swine terrifies him Of their combating with Dragons and their perpetual discord Pliny writes that the Dragon clings about him as on a knot he finding himself overmastered with
horns very stubborn and not easily broken The tongue when pluckt out will pant a whole day The skins that hang down the throat are called palezar the dew-lap See the Greek names in Varrinus The teeth are continued and twice changed Those of two years old change teeth saith Pliny They want the upper-row they chew therefore with the four fore-teeth as hath been said Their peezel is very stiffe They have two udders between their legges Pliny saith four calling it seems the teats which are four udders Their arse gapes saith Horace Their taile is long the hair short The flesh dry and duskish The sinews hard and stubborn though not so long as the Bulls The blood full of strings therefore hastily congeals and hardens The ham-joynt not so fast as that of other beasts therefore he drags his feet more especially when he is lean and old It is said they have a stone in the head which they spit out when they look to be slaughtered Austin reports they have one also in the liver and reins Pliny saith there is a bone in his heart The milt is very long and blacker then the Swines especially when he grows old The reins resemble mans each as it were made up of many The ancles greater then the Camels In the Heifers second ventricle is found a rough sand-stone round as a ball very light Aldrovand had two of them in his study one reddish the other black for that was taken out of a red this out of a black Ox since it is sprung from haires that they lick in in chewing the cud as it sometimes happens they with licking themselves swallow something that gathers into an ovall chapt being mixt with flegme wee need not discourse much of the place where they are found For their meat they devour all that the earth yeelds especially grasse çitisus pease knot-grasse sedge willow oke-leaves olive-bows reed black-elder vines barly hirse wheat acornes date-kernels wild olive missle-toe these the most delight in All know grasse to be their feed in Summer and hay in Winter In the province of Narbon in Fount-Orges grows an herb so gratefull to Oxen that they will plunge themselves over head and eares to seek it They will do the like in the River Loïr about Veluin and in the Sebusian Fish-ponds And in the ditches pools and black waters thereabout grows a grasse with long reddish leaves flooting on the water after which they are so greedy that they will wade belly-deep and duck in the whole head to feed thereon which fattens them strangely and the Cows that fed there yeeld much more milk then neerhand Citisus breeds much and sweet milk but while it flourishes it is not so good but dries up milk Pease are commended but not sowed in March because it makes them wild-headed Pliny says that not onely that that is sowen in March is hurtfull to oxen but also that that is sowen in May is hurtfull to Oxen but also that that is sowen in Autumne makes them sleepy steep it and it is corrected Therefore Democritus prescribes such to be given them monthly in their drinke to strengthen them five bushells serves a yoak of oxen Clave grasse or three leaved fattens a carrion lean ox and cures a sick one Therefore wild Trifoly is diligently sowen in many parts of Spain especially in Valentia Yet it must be given sparingly else it dries milke and turns all the meat into blood fat and flesh Lotus gives best nourishment and sweetest and being sowen once in fallow ground flourishes many yeares after Elm-leaves especially those of Attinia the Romans held much of If you give it them dayly and then another sort of leaves they will be weary of them Virgil mentions willows nor hath Lucretius forgot them Fig-leaves if they may be had are very good for them yet oke-leaves and wild olive that is not thorny are thought better Black elder leaves bring a flush of milk Barly chaffe and that of other grain Hirse is sowen in Italy for them saith Porta fitches are given them in stead of pease ground in a hand-mill and weakned a little in water in Spaine Baetica A bushell of pulse serves to put an Ox into good case weakned three dayes in river or sea-water it grows sweet and then dried again is laid up for this use Acornes are advised to be gathered after seed time and cast into water and a half bushell to be given in spring to each Ox It is meet about the fall of the leafe to give each yoke of oxen 24 bushells The greater make them unhealthfull and when ever you give it if they have it not 30 dayes together they get the spring scab The Babylonians give their Oxen datekernels soakt in water and to their sheep They are fattened by misletoe They feed also on fish among the Paeonae who dwell by the Prashian marishes Neither do they abstain from Hemlock whether green or dry Nor doth eating of frogs do them any harme Briefly they delight to drinke clear water nor doth muddy hurt them About their manner of feeding see Aldrovand and writers of husbandry For their age the Cow lives 15 years at most the male 20 they are at their best at five Their age is knowen by changing their teeth the foreteeth they cast within a year and eight or ten months then after six months by degrees they loose the next till within three yeare they have changed them all when they are best disposed and so hold out to fifthteen At best their teeth stand fair long and even but growing old they diminish wax black and rot The Helvetians judge of their Cows age by certain circles almost at top of their horns they are three at five years old after more Some thinke they get a circle with every calving About their gendring lust coupling and calving I meet with these observations The Bull feeds with the Cow only in engendring time they couple with the elder twice a day with the yonger oftner and that with one and the same and quietly A geld one hath egendred saith Aristotle One Bull may serve 15 Cows Varro allows many more Hee abstaines from the cows that are with calf at first and as it were voluntarily divorces himself as it is to be seen in Epire especially where for most part hee is not to be seen for three months but feeds by himself The Cows salacity is famous See Aristotle about the excesse and signes of their lust as also Aelian H. A. l. 10. c. 27. About what heats then see Columella R. R. l. 6. thither I refer the reader for I list not to translate such stuffe The Cows are knowen to be with calf when their termes cease within 2 3 4 half a months space They goe 10 months and in the tenth they calve they bring forth nothing alive sooner saith Pliny Some say they calve when the tenth
his shape The horns are black and to be seen in most libraries like a swords blade at top diverse according to their age both in length bredth and number of knobs Wee give you here the images of two of them But Aldrovand himself durst define whether they are Indian Asses horns or no. But since the Aethiops called Sili used them for weapons against the Struthiophagi or Estridge-eaters and they are very hand and beamy long sharp-pointed and hollow they seeme to belong to the Oryx The Egyptians fain many things of him that they know when the Dog-star arises and then cry out that they gaze on the star and adored it like a God whether by a peculiar sympathy or that they know cold weather is past which they cannot well endure He seems to despise the Sun and Moon they dung against the rising Sun and never drink Columella and Martial mention the Orus but I beleeve it is not the same with this The later calls him Cavage the former reckons him among the beasts kept in warrens or parks for food Hee is said by Oppian to be wild a great foe to wild beasts and milke white So different are the relations about the Orus which must be a double kind one fearfull the other fierce Some in India are said to have four horns Ambr. Paréus T. 1. l. 5. c. 5. mentions a wild beast in some Island of the Red-sea called by the Arabs Kademotha by the inhabitants called Parasoupi as great as a mule and headed alike haired like a Beare but not so dark-coloured but yellowish footed like the Hart having two lofty horns but not beamed akin to the Unicorns horn The natives being bitten by any venomous beast are cured forthwith by drinking the water wherein the horn hath lien soaking certain dayes ARTICLE VII Of the Hart or Deer THe Latine name Cervus is taken from the Greek Kerata horns The Greeks give him very many names as Elaphos because of his nimblenesse or his delight to be about lakes or waters or because he drives away the serpent with the smell of his horn who rubs it on purpose against a stone to raise the sent and Beirix Bredos c. The Hinds first fawning they call Ptookas that is Procas the Calf or Fawn Nebros c. The Deer or Hart is cloven-footed tong-hoofed soft-haired and hollow within if you beleeve Junius which makes him swim well He is light coloured sandy reddish yet there are white ones as Sertorius his Hind which as he perswaded the Spaniards was propheticall No beast carries greater horns The Hind hath none ordinarily though some have been seen horned by Maximilian the Emperor and by Scaliger The Fawn of a year old hath beginnings of horns budding short and rough The second year he is called a pricket and hath plain horns called spellers or pipers The third year he is a sorell his horns branching once and sox increase to the sixt year Wee say there are in a stages head the Burre or round roll next the head then the Beam or main horn then the Browanteliers next above the Bezanteliers next the royall above the surroyall top In a Bucks head are Burre Beam Braunch Advancers Palm Spellers The fourth year the Buck is a Sore the fifth year a Buck of the first head the sixt he is a Buck or great Buck. But the branching is very different William Duke of Bavaria hath two each horn hath one and twenty branches Albertus speaks of eleven such in Germany Aemilian saw in the Duke of Ferrara his store-house a Hart little lesse then a Horse and so branched as the German heads At Antwerp is one with 15 branches Other hornes are hollow except at top the Harts solied throughout others cleave to the bone the Harts sprout onely out of the skin No beast casts the horns so as hee The horn is as firme and hard as a stone growing old it is lighter especially in the open air and sometimes moyst and dry again Gesner hath observed in a grown Hart at top of the horn two three or five branches and the beame six fingers broad beside the antlers and spellers below and he hath marked between the brain-pan and the horns litle bones or double-bony knobs about two fingers long smooth and the shorter the older the Hart is Wee English divide the Deer into red and fallow Deer among the red wee call the male a Stag the shee an Hind the young Calves among the fâ—llow Deer wee call the hee a Buck the shee a Doe the young Fawns And they all differ in hornes and in some they are grown together Gesner saith he hath seen a Stags-speller of 9 inches and of one of three years old with the speller of 18 inches Those wee have mentioned are smooth white not rugged They cast their horns yearly at a certain time in the Spring One hath been taken in whose horn green Ivy grew It is said that if you gueled them their horns fade away Their face is fleshy the nose flat the neck long the nostrils fourefold and with as many passages their musles slender and weake the ears as cut and parted as no other beasts have They that are about Argenusa on the hill Elapsus they have foure teeth on each side both below grinders and besides two other above greater in the male then the female they bend all downward and seeme bent They have all live-worms in the head bred under the tongue in a hollow of a turning joynt that joyns the neck to the head others as great bred in the flesh at least â—0 some have seen more and severed though some have none Some say Wasps are bred within theirs eye-bone and fly out thence The blood is like water having no strings but is curdled as many have observed with Baldus Angelus The eyes are great the heart as great as uses to be in all timerous creatures Divers write diversly of a stone in the corner of the eye called Belzahart or Bezaar Scaliger denies it that there is any stone there till the Deere be an 100 years old and then it begins to grow and waxes harder then a horn swelling out of the bones and over the face where it bunches out it is round and shining yellow and streaked with black so light that it scarce abides the touch you may see it withdrawn it self Scribonius calls it the eye-filth Almost in all Deers hearts are found bones the greater in the older sometimes shaped like a crosse interfering I have seen them saith Iordanus as big as a pigeons egg and framed of plates and which is pleasant to see break them and you find a bone in the midst like the other heart-bones about which those shells clings the heat of the heart ingenders them They are found from the midst of August to the middle of September Brasavolus calls it a sinew
in their mouth as a Cat would a Mouse Nor can men take sanctuary in trees for they climb them and fetch men down and rend them to pieces In the expedition of Fedreman a Tiger assaulted a troop of Souldiers and in the midst of them tare a Spaniard and three Indians and escaped away unhurt Yet swadle them about the reins with a stick you cool their courage and master them there is no other way The Indians dread no beast more and even worship it The Devil very oft confers with them in the shape of a Tiger their claws are thought venemous and the wound they make incurable The Barbarians reverence nay dread this beast lesse since the Gospel came amongst them They are taken in nets and in some places in traps In Bengala are the fiercest found and implacably revengeful One hath followed along the shore-side thirty mile a Ship wherein any have been embarqued who wronged her Cruel to all they meet man or beast Nature yeilds some prevention to this mischief A little beast ever accompanies the Tiger and by constant barking discovers where he is and both men and beasts take the warning and hide themselves or run away They are most greedy after mans-flesh especially the black-Moors and know their ships chasing them twenty leagues together watching if any come ashore to devour him By night they leap into ships and surprize and destroy the Mariners To give a memorable example of what hapened to one of our men while we were trading in Bengala A certain Moor a servant dreamed that a Tiger snatched him away the night after he hid himself in the prow of the ship being asked the cause he told his dream which the some night was verified for all being asleep a Tiger leaps aboard touches not any else though thirty lay asleep in the ship but seazes the wretched Moor. The lot of another was Luckier as divine providence ordered it hee being ashore not far from the ship a Tiger assaults him behinde and a Crocodile out of a river afore the Tiger to prevent his foe and bear away his prey for overhast runs quite beyond the man and running against the ships-side falls into the Crocodiles jaws and so the man escaped It cannot be said how those of Bengala dread the Tigers rage whence they call him by sundry names fearing that if they should call him by his owne name they might be torne in pieces In Brasil there are multitudes of them and those hungry ravenous dreadfull and swift and very strong But once full fed they are said to be so sluggish that common curres can drive them away Gluttony destroy not mankind alone In new Spain they lurke in trees by rivers-sides watching the Crocodiles and leap down and surprize and kill them Time was when Darien was as much pestered by Tigers as Nemaea with Lions and Calidonia with wilde Boares In six month there passed not one night free wherein a heyfer horse dog or hog was not devoured in the town-wayes their herds and flocks were wasted not a man could with safety step forth a doores especially when the Tigresses had whelps when hunger forced them to sease man and beast At length necessity put the natives on this invention to revenge and save the blood of them and theirs they observed strictly the Tigers track from their dens and digged a ditch cast up light earth covered it with hurdles fastened sharp stakes at the bottome there came a hee-Tiger hee fell in stuck fast on the stakes the Indians threw down great stones on him and dispatched him in the pit they cast many darts at him which with his right paw hee shattered into a thousand pieces and chips If when half dead and bloodlesse hee bred such a terrour in the beholders how dreadfull think wee was hee when loose One John Ledesina a Spanjard who was present at the busines reports that hee ate his share of that Tiger and that it tasted as well as beef Ask them who never saw a Tiger how they know one they tell you by the spots fiercenesse nimblenesse When many have seen Leopards Panthers Ounces so marked also the male-Tiger dead they traced his footsteps to his den where female also dwelt shee absent they tooke away two sucking whelps changing their mind and that they might send them to Spain when bigger they fitted iron-chains carefully to their necks and left them there to the dames nursery A few dayes after returning to the den they found them not supposing that the dame in a rage had torne them in pieces and taken them away that no man might have them for they affirme that they could not possibly be tame alive out of the chains The skin of the male was stuffed with dry herbs and sent to Admirantus and the Governers of Hispaniola See more of this subject in Nieremberg and Marckg. H. B. l. 6. c. 10. CHAP. V. Of the Beare THe Latines call this beast Ursus from urgeo to force or dirve or urge as they doe their prey till it fall afore them or from Orsus because they lick their cubs into shape c. The Greeks Arkâ—os from Arkoo to drive or Arkeomai because hee passest the winter without eating His body is grosse and unwieldy and some say ever waxing some have been found five cubits long and as broad beyond any ox-hide and such a one was presented to Maximilian the Emperour at the Baths of Baden The skin is thick and shaggy the teeth hidden the mouth long eyes quick the feet like hands his chief strength lies in his arms and loyns sometimes they stand on their hindfeet their tayl is short having foure paps a large stomack and gut when taken in their dens in winter sleeping and being unbowdled their stomack is empty and clinged together Galen observes sinews in them so turning as in any other beasts are hardly seen Their heads seemes weake especially afore which in a Lion is strongest therefore falling down in any precipice they tumble down with their arms covering their head While they keep in their coverts small drops of blood are onely about their heart the rest of their body is bloodles Grease and fat they have but no marrow saith Pliny They are found almost all the world over most are in Poland Germany Lithuania Norwey and other Northern parts especially in Nova-Zembla In England are now none nor in Candy It is a mistake that there are none in Africa for the Moores weare the skins They delight more in hilly then plain land whence it is that the Alpes so swarm with them and those stout ones In the mountains of Peru are many black ones and Pernes an Attick hill is famous for Bear-hunting The Beare eats all kind of things among plants they fancy a red and sweet berry growing on a bramble and the herb Cuculus a kind of Trifoyl and a root that provokes sleep A Cow-herd on
the Helvetian Alps having spied afar of a Bear eating that root after the Beare was gone tasting it was so sleepy thereupon that he drop'd down where he stood When they come out of their holes they feed first on the herb Arum About Trent grows a thorny shrub with a white flower and red berries called Bears-bread They climb trees and eat the fruit and pulse and hony crabs ants and flesh fresh or rotten especially hony-combs Jovius tells a merry story of a Boore in Muscovy who slipping into a hollow tree up to the neck in hony and living there two dayes with no other sustenance a Bear came gently down into the same tree to eat hony on whose rugged hide the poor man catching hold was drawn out In Island and the frozen seas they live on fish They drink water but neither sipping as the sharp-toothed nor gulping in as the beasts that have a continued rew of teeth but champing it They are very venerous since because wild beasts excepting the Lizard and Hare when big use not to couple these are thought to hasten to bring forth their cubs the sooner by some force on themselves that they may engender a new It is reported that the males lust after young virgins and that one tooke a mayd away of the Allobroge and lay with her and fed her with wild apples which Philip Cosserus Bishop of Constance related to Gesner Saxo tells that a race of Danish Kings is derived from a Bear and some say the same of Gothish Kings They couple in February or in the beginning of winter not as other fourfooted beasts but as mankind Being with young they hide themselves and the males seemed to hold them in great regard They goe 30 dayes and bring one two sometimes five cubs together They breed and bring forth in hast which makes their cubs so ugly and mis-shapen litle lumps of white flesh without eyes or hair only clawed after a fashion which they are said to lick into shape and to lay to their breasts to cherish with their warmth to bring life and breath into them But of late experience shews the contrary and that is but a fancy that Ursus comes from Orsus begun or unfinished Above Trent one was taken in a vally and ripped up and all her cubs were found full shaped within her In a library of the Senate-house in Bononia a young cub cut out of the Dams belly exact at all parts is kept in a glascase Camerarius his guesse is not unlikely that the bed wherein the cub is wrapped is so thick that the dame is many daies licking it off which occasioned the vulgar errour They hate mortally the Sea-ox Horse Boor the Dead and a Table-cloath They abhor the Sea-calfe most of all The Horse can smell them that never saw a Bear and fortwith prepares to combate and kicks him on the head with his hinder feet mastring him more by sleight then strength They are thought to hate the dead because they will not touch a man layed at length with his face downward Seneca saith a Table-cloath incenseth them Hemlock kills them and the Bear called Marcillium or Consiligo There is also a black fish in Armenia the meal whereof sprinckled on figs if they eat it is their bane Experience shews that they delight in musick Their voyce is roaring or rather grumbling Having tasted Mandragora apples they lick ants When they are qualmish they go to Myrmesia or Myre-hools and sitting they loll out the tongue dropping with that sweet juice lightly holding it so long till they set it swarme with Pis-mires Being wounded they heal themselves with dry herbs The Shee-bears after their helping in to whelp comming into the light are so dazeled that you would thinke they were stark blind Because they are often hevy sighted they hunt so after hony and that having stung their mouth with bees they may be rid of that blood that oppresseth them They tumble into their dens that their footsteps may not be tracked where they ly quiet and at ease fourty dayes and for fourteen dayes stir not sustaining themselves only by licking their right foot so that through fasting their guts are klinged together and even shriveled up The males ly hid fourty dayes the females four months They furnish their dens with heaps of bows and shrubs or soft leaves making them weather proof and then lay themselves along and sleep the first seven dayes so soundly that wounds cannot wake them which strangely fattens them after they live by sucking their forefeet strange to say Theophrastus thinks that for that time Bears flesh boyled and kept might increase there is no shew in them that they have eaten but onely a little moysture found in the paunch and a few drops of blood about the heart and none in the rest of the body In the Spring they come forward and the males grows so fat that they hardly stirre the Shee-beare is leaner because they breed They hold their lodgings in their dens severally divided by trenches Comming abroad they eat greedily the herb Arum to loosen their guts that are so shriveled up and when they breed teeth they champ on slips thereof If they assault Bulls they make at the horns to tire them out and at the mustle because they know it to be tender Their very breath is so contagious that no wilde beast will touch what they have blowen on In Mysia they say are a kind of white bears that being hunted send forth such a breath that the steame that rots the flesh of the doggs Although their flesh be cold rank hard of disgestion and ill for the spleen and liver yet those about the Alps and the Helvetians count it a delicate And Bruerius saith that hee at supper at of it well seasoned at Symphorianus Campejus his table but it was of a young one killed in witner which indeed they use to eat For though they are fatter in July yet for their rammish sent they are banisht the table usually onely the forefeet are held the best food and affected by some great men Some say that salted and hung in the chimny to be smoaked they are a delicate and that they wonder not that in winter they suck their owne feet Savanorola saith the brain is poyson Divers parts of the Beare are of great use in Phisick The eye dried and hung about childrens neck is said to free them from feare in the night and bound on the left shoulder allays a quartan ague The blood dissolves waxen kernells and impostumes and helps against hairs bred in the eyes and kills fleas The fat takes out spots and with Lilly-roots is good against a burne some sudar it on against S. Anthonies fire mixt with red oker it heals ulcers on the skins and thighs with Allom it closes chaps in the feet it helps against baldnes they use
name Talpa the Latines have put on it either from Thaptoo to digge or Tophlos blind or Thalpae nourishing it self under ground or from the Chaldee Talaf to cleave the earth The Greeks call it Spalax from Span scraping Some Siphncus from hollowing the earth and Blacta It is not unlike a Mouse the body broad and flat feet like a Bears short-thighed toad-headed having on the forefeet five toes on the hinder foure the fifth crooks so inward it is hardly seene The palme of the forefeet is flat like a hand the neck very short or almost none hair short and thick and glistring black the teeth as the Dogges and Wesels are all on the sides none afore and sticking up the lungs tied with many severall strings to the heart the fore-thighs consist of two bones set into the shoulder-bone whence he is stronger to digge his hinder-thighs have a bone that a litle below the knee-parts in two All the bowells are as in other beasts Onely 1. they have no colon no blind-gut 2. The stones hid on the bladder-side and black 3. The reins joyned to the next hollow vein 4. The gall great for such a body with faire Cholidochs 5. The porter of the stomack is as tied by a thwart line 6. The water-conveying-vessells propt with uriteres 7. The Larinx as in a Land tortoyse for it is a mute beast 8. The hammer and anvill within the inner-eare are strangely small the bone in the midst like a pumice-stone full of pores 9. Three passages are in the nether jaw 10. The eyes stand in the right place all black covered with a skin small as a fleawort-seed I could perceive no optick sinews nor know I whether they can see or no not onely because their eyes have a film over them but they want many things conducing to sight They seeme rather natures sportive essays to shew what shee can doe then eyes In a Mole found 1617 were observed a fleshy filme strangely set into the skinne the brain great distinct and faire the ears lying inward hide the bones extreame small the bowels small as strings In Thessaly they with heaving have overturned a whole Town In Lebaica are none if you bring any thither they heave not perhaps because it is a hard soile They feed most on worms and therefore haunt dunghills and worms failing they eat earth They have been seen also to make at roots of hearbs and fruits and toads They are commonly bred in ground rotted by rain long lying Albert saith they cannot live an houre above ground but he is mistaken They have but dim sight but are very quick of hearing They are of use in Phisick a Tooth pluckt out of a live one is thought to ease the tooth-ach Pills of them with hony wear away swellings The head cut and stamped with earth of his heaving made up into balls and kept in a tinne box is given against all neck-griefs the blood brings hair and helps felons the fat keeps hair from growing as also batfat The ashes cures fistulaes Some lay a moles-Moles-heart and Saladine under a sick mans pillow to know if hee shall dy or no conceiving that he shall recover if he sing or cry out if he weep he shall not last long The water wherein a Mole hath been and left hair restores hair Of the skins are caps made CHAPTER XIX Of the Land-Hedg-hog or Vrchin CAlled Echinus because we cannot hold him for his prickles In Greek Akanthochoiros a prickled-hog Lycophron calls him Naplium from his surpassing cunning Some Herinaceus and not improperly from his roughnesse or cleaving It is as big as a rabbit full of prickles except the mouth and feet below where grows a thin down It is observed in him that the muscles are knit together over all his body The bowells all of a thicknesse and very long like the Mouses The dung and testicles all of a bignesse the rise of the yard long the seed like yellow snivell the liver sevenpointed In the yard are whitish bits of flesh craggy like a rock and resembling somewhat the lungstrings The testicles ly hid and are fastned to the loyns The bones are some round some flat some sharp some blunt They are found everywhere except in Candy Aristotle writes that they can last a year without food They live most on apples and grapes which they shake off and stick on their prickles and carry to their hole They have been also observed to drinke milke and wine in houses they hold enmity with the Beare Wolfe Fox the viper and the herb water-grasse When he hears the barking of dogs or smells the approach of wild beasts or hunters he forthwith rouls himself up like a ball and lies as if he were starke dead He shifts his layer as the North and South wind change and from wall to wall if you keep him in house accordingly as the wind sits When you take him he pisses and that wet slackens and opens his prickles They meet and ingender as mankind doth Some eat them but they breed the strangury unlesse they be carefully dressed that is killed at one blow as some are of opinion and washed in whole vessells of urine In August they are fattest when they get plenty of food Some spice and bake them in crust Gesner warmed them in vineger and wine and larded them and stuck them with cloves and rosted them They are very usefull in Phisick the liver helps the reins the gall dries up warts the spleen rosted and pulverized is good for the spleen the flesh prevents miscarrying and if killed at a blow the strangullion if you hang it about you conveniently dried it helps rumples in the skin The Polonians use the fat to that end it is also good for the stone the blood is not unusefull for the stone the reins and the scorching of the urine the ashes with Bears-grease sleeks the hair many use the same with oyly fat to prevent miscarrying it is used also in the pain of the reins and against the water between the skin the dung newly voided with the herb Sandarucha vineger and tarre hinders shedding of hair with the hide and prickles men used of old to fetch spots out of cloaths They are distinguished into the swine and the dog urchine from their shape A vile stinke vapours from them In Brasil is such a beast resembling the hedge-hog with very long bristles pale haired black at the tops and very sharp and prickly Nature hath layed up a wonder in them one prickle pluckt from them alive but layed on anything especially flesh pearcheth it and in one night it hath been known to pearce through a very thick hide as if hands hath pricked it in CHAPTER XX. Of the Porcupine SOme reckon this among the Hedge-hogs as Pliny c. The Greeks call it Ystrix from Ys
forefeet and a spur the yard long and stretched out His chief strength lies in the tail-bone a pill whereof made of the dust as bigge as a birds-head and put into the eare asswages eare-paine and takes away tingling and thicknes of hearing as it is said but it is knowen to give certain ease I adde the craft of the Chirquinchus they that have seene it and report that when it raines he lies on his back gathers water on his soft belly that lies between the plates and remaines so while the shewre lasts though it rain the whole day till some Deere thirsty comes unawares to drink then he closes his plates and snaps the Deers slips and nose and let not go the hold till he stifle him And as the Hedge-hogge also he craftily rouls up himself round like a ball and nothing but fire can loosen him The Indians abuse the shells to their witchcrafts especially to discover and punish theeves first touching the ground therewith that the suspected person had toucht or any thing else they fill his mouth with the drinke Chicha then beat they drums the shells the while skip and daunce Hereby is the theeves face marked with a whelk that runs along his cheeks through either jaw if the charm hold ARTICLE III. Of tame foure-footed Beasts CHAPTER I. Of the Dog SO much for the half wilde Beasts the tame follow namely the Dog and the Cat. Varro fetches the Dogs name Canis from Canorus shrils in his barke The Greekes of old called him Kuoon from Kuoo doubtles to love or lust Of late Ekilos from his masterfulnes Ulaktoor from barking and Akanthis from fawning with his tayl not to insist on the description of so knowen a beast In dissection it is noted that the belly within forked the neck in shortnes and narrownes answering the middle-finger the corners are an handbreath a palme long of like thicknes not wreathed like a Swines the forkends reach to the reins tied by veins that come as far as the womb the testicles resting thereon by a thin skin At the first opening of the neck the body shews it self in bulk shape and colour like a Snails-head thrust forth out of the shell you cannot thrust a bodkin in till you cut it up a litle Dissect a bitch you find the puppies wrapt up in three beds called chorion allantoides and amnion the former can scarce be parted they are so thin In the right corner ly usually five whelps in the left foure each hath its bed the chorion in the midst girdles ly thwart two fingers broad streaked with black from the end and red in the middle each as blood-spotted The kell like a bag covering the upper-guts the top sprouting out of the stomack-bottome compassing the whole the hinder-part is set into the Spleen and the sweetbreads which latter shew themselves presently at the rise of the duodenum being fastned thereto and to the porturine which sends a trebble-branch to the neighbouring-parts Meseraick Spleen-guts the Paunch-branch runs beyond part of the stomack the Spleen-branch runs up strait to the mouth of the stomack The Spleen is tied to the mid-rif by a film two fingers broad and to the stomack by the kall the Spleen is like a foot with a wide shoo on Colon-gut it hath none the blind-gut receives the end of the strait one which unfolded is as long as your middle-finger At the end of the streight-gut within is one faire lappet and another lesse in the beginning of the blind-gut The streight-gut is much rumpled There is a fold of arteries from the aorta wound to the hollow of the liver approaching the pancreas pluck one you draw the other and the upper-bowells Above the upper-mouth of the stomack are two kernels both Spungy-moist the right harder and greater then the left dogs-Dogs-blood is black as burnt At the tip of the Tongue is set in a round muscle descending in a middle-line The right lappet of the heart is twice as big as the left On the parts of the pan that the temple-muscles cover appears no thin skin to enwrap them besides what is proper to the muscles but on the other parts of the brain-pan there is At the tongue-root is a small kernell on either side drawne out sideling The ringlets of the sharp artery lie thwart but not awry as in the Swine The brain is greater then a Swines Turn the brain up and certain mamillary-passages shew themselves and the beginning of the back-bone if you cut deep there you shall spy two small passages one comming from the paps in a strait line reaching to the end of the inner-brain the other a litle on this side lying upward thwart of that On the fore-feet are five toes on the hinder foure The Bitches-belly hath two rows of paps on either side Albert saith that the nostrils of a Dog of a good breed are at the ends round firme and blunt The temple muscles are noted to be very strong as in the Wolf and the Lion which inables his jaws to break bones There were no Dogs in Brasil till Vilagagnon's voyage If any come by hap into the Arabian Island Sigaron they wander and die They eat any thing even fish and carrion Onely they refrain dogs-flesh and what is thunder-strooke They eat grasse also and it is their Physick From Ash-apples they abstain because the turning-joints of their hips are thereby pained Drinking wine or strong water makes them run wild till the vapour be spent They are ever given to gendring seldomest in Autumne They hold on so till twelf years old sometimes give over at nine If they begin at foure the breed is better if at a year old not They are foureteen dayes hote and the Bitch six months after puppying go to Dog again They couple also promiscuously with other beasts as with Wolves by Cyrene whence spring Crocutae with Lions whence Leontomiges come with Beavers whence Castorides with Foxes whence Fox-dogs They carry their puppies sixty dayes some three-and-sixty They bring a litter of twelf sometimes sixteen A Hare-hound in Bononia puppied seventeen at once Albertus saw Mastives that brought in the first litter nineteen at another eighteen at a third thirteen Those that women dandle puppy one at once First they breed males next females then males again if they couple in due time The first resembles the sire the rest are as it happens They are all puppied-blind and the more they suck the longer they remain so yet none longer then one-and-twenty dayes nor do any see till seven dayes old some say if but one be puppied at nine dayes old he sees if two the tenth day and so on but it is not certain They have milke commonly five dayes ere they litter some sooner Their milke is thicker then other beasts except the Sows and Hares They seldome live above fourteene yeares some have lasted two-and-twenty The Dogs of Laconia ten
them and spiders with their webs intangle young Lizards in holes and crevises of walls and strike them dead also toads Scorpions and Serpents with which they fight whence called Ophiomechi They love flesh of shellfish and dittany which is their refuge after combating with Serpents and man they lvoe and protect him from serpents They will lick the spittle out of your mouth greedily In time they loose their fight and recover it againe either by course of nature or by the sun in whose beams they ly lurking till they be recovered They lurk the six winter-months under ground and there lay up store The female is greatest They go in couples and defend each other and are mad at any that take their fellow They forget the eggs they lay cut an egge in two it is not lost by reason of the glewy humour they naturally cleave again as may be seen by the scarre Their tayle are said to grow again though oft cut off It is not true that a dried one turns Viper At Paris have been seen some as big as a great fish Some have three tayls and some two heads Torn in twain it cures a Scorpions bite and eaten it is good against the Salamanders poyson The oyl of them drowned and boyled in oyl with Sheep-dung is a good anointment for swellings of the neck and face morfew and pimples The powder with crematartar and candy-oyl helps dim sight the green are best The brain helps Syffusions The head bruised to a poultise and laid on alone or with long aristolochia root of reed bulb of Narcissus draws out arrows and thorns stick they never so fast The heart burnt and mixt with dreges of wine benums that you shall not feel the chirurgions probe The blood keeps rickets from growing if you annoint infants-thighs carefully therewith and is good if they be bursten the dung is put into the medicine for horses strangury Kill one in a mans-pisse it abates your lust ARTICLE II. Of the green and the Brazen-coloured Lizard THe green Lizard or Chloorosaura is called also the Greater and the Serpent-fighter they worstling serpents They haunt hote places as Italy where coming of many abroad at once presages a sickly time In summer they bide in trees and croak like frogs and have two tails The figure below shall save a labour to describe them It is usefull in Phisick ty it on thirty dayes for neck-swellings and then change it Childrens burstings are cured by a bite then shoot him through with an arrow and bloat him Boyled alive with wine and given fasting it helps wheesings and sod with oyl face pimples With tarre and an old sows grease it takes away tendernesse of Horse-hoofs It makes the hair black And it renews hair See in Ambrosine the ointment for the falling sicknesse The ashes help exulcerated neck-swellings The bones help them in a swound after you powder him alive in a stone pot and the flesh fall off There is a Lizard with brasse-coloured streaks down the back called Ziglis Samiamithon and Seps a serpent because the flesh it bites rots and Tarantula but amisse It resembles the small Lizard and is coloured like the serpent Caecilia It is bred and lives among the stones in Syria Lybia and Cyprus It beares young as the viper doth but carry egs in the belly as other animals that lay egges Fabius Columna killed one in a French camp and cutting it up found fifteen young within her some hath a thin transparent skin some none cut it in two it cures a bite Galen praescribes it among pickled meats ARTICLE III. Of Indian Lizards POINT I. Of the Senembi or Igvana THere are many kinds of Indian Lizards the most famous are the Senembi or Igvana the Portugees miscall it Cameliaon and the Dutch worse Legvan long from the mouth to the tail end three foot eight fingers compasse ten fingers The whole skin of a delicate green with black and white spots chequered like chamelet it is scaly the greatest scales are on the back thighs and tail and here all equall From the neck to the tail end a new of plain ones like saw-teeth and green the head about two fingers long and scaly the scales greater then elsewhere the neck a finger and half long five thick their eyes large clear and blackish nostrills wide the teeth many small black short tongue thick the head on each side black spotted a gullet hanging as fish gills or a crop down to the breast most part blackish that he can gather up and let hang out when vexed or frighted From the mouth to the crop it hath bristles and on the back it hath four thighs and four feet on each five toes all scaly the fore-thighs are shortest and slenderest four fingers long and the middle toes shorter then those on the hinder-feet the nayls black and crooked like bird-claws c. The hinder-thighs like a mans calf the foremost not the dock five fingers thick and so the tail thinner and thinner and ending like an aul One being kill and flead yet waged after and the heart taken out leaped it had in either side above ten egs some as big as a cherry some lesse the fat plainly seen as a Hens in the stomack was much fruit especially sweet Limons which was the usuall food They eat also meal and Mandioca-water They can fast two or three months together The flesh is well tasted boyled and long fried with butter it tasts as well as chicken or cony It hath heart lungs liver gall-bladder reins bladder genitals as other beasts a large liver a double stomack one afore receiving the food whence a gut as big as the little finger and about ten fingers long whereto is knit the other ventricle that disgests food hence passe the other to the strait gut In the fore-stomack of one was found great store of Mandoa meal and Angolas milt raw the hindermost the greater was stufâ—d with half disguested meat whereto cleaved many mites as in cheese the last gut held the dung Being flead and the taile cut off it stird yet five or six strokes on the head could not kill it till a cut was given in the neck the tayl-flesh is stringy and sinewy Anno 1641. was a stone taken out of a Senembies stomack as big as a reasonable hen-egge and so shaped but not so round but squatter without smooth bright within made up of coasts like an onjon to be pilled off within it was bright gray hard as a Bezoar-stone they fit in trees and are taken in lines that the Brasilians know how to fit a club which the beast spying wonders at but stirres not suffring it self to be ensnared and taken else he is very swift the younger are all over green the elder party-coloured or ash-hewd In their heads are sometimes found small stones that lessen and void the stones in the reins forthwith either by the juice drawn out of a dram
elsewhere none it hath blood only in the heart and about the eyes the bowells are without spleen The lungs take up almost the whole body Thus Arist. and Pliny Others write that from the midst of the head backward there sticks out a three cornered part bony and the rest afore is hollow as a pipe the brims on both sides sticking out bony and sharp as a saw-teeth It moves not the ey-balls it is ever gaping hath a long tongue like that of an earth-worm at the tip is a spungy glewly knot wherewith it preys In stead of teeth and gums it hath one continued bone knaged the upper-lip is shortest the throat and artery like the Lizards the heart as big as a house-mouses the liver hath two lappets the left greatest the gall-bag as big as a barly corn cleaving to the left liver-lappet bowelled as a Lizard the forefeet very different from the hinder the forefeet having three toes inward two outward the hinder three outward and two inward It is from the snowt to the dock seven or eight fingers long five fingers high it hath about sixteen ribs bending between the bottome of the belly and the ridge of the back and it is spotted like a Leopard the teeth stand comlily he hath but one gut with bendings the excrement moyst unlesse near the fundament the liver parted on the bunchy side pouring the blood into the hart that hath ears and not veins the lungs being puffed passes into a thin skin reaching round almost through the whole body there is no rim at the belly bottome onely a thin skin severing the right from the left parts He hath no milt no bladder no reins to be seene but small bits of flesh that it may be are genitals the tongue is near a foot long They are in Asia Africk India and Madagascar They sit on the garden hedges at grand Cair by the banks of Nile as also on bramble-bushes Of old they were thought to live on air but they prey on flies locusts but they fancy most the worms in meal tubs They keep above for fear of serpents and vipers They use their tongue as a trunk darting it forth with that nimblenesse that you can hardly perceive it by the means of a small forke bone planted on either side the ends of the jaws the tongue is hollow like a gut which he can infold and unfold at pleasure at the end is a slimy bit of flesh to prey withall Peirescius kept eight of them to observe their breeding there were in one female within a thin skin above a hundred egges some as big as an olive kernell all yolk no white seen in them yet resembling milk They hold enmity with the hauk which will dy it is thought if he but tast a Chamaeleon and a crew also unlesse bay-leave fence him The Elephant is fabled by Solinus to swallow them they being of the colour of the leaves and they cost him his life unlesse he help himself by wild olive Fear of vipers and serpents makes him live on shrubs and trees His spittle let down on a serpents head like a limed thread kills him Wild figs make him wild who is otherwise harmlesse He turns his whole dy about sits high ever gaping when dead hee is pale In winter he hides himself as Lizards use By nature he admirably changes colour but in eyes and tail and whole body according to the colour of what lies next except red and white yet Ambrosine affirms from a Gentlemans testimony that he changes to white But Peirescius his eight changed not colour Whether they be green or ash they put on a black if you turn them to the sun or fire It is strange that their eyes being combined move not but one looking any way the other is fixed or bends the other way which deflection comes from the four pullies in them there being no distinction of Iris but only a ball wherein the horny part ends which is glistring and various as the rest of the body Those of Cochin eat them They bind many together and sell them being bought they are cast into the fire and roasted Flea one the flesh is very clear which they seeth in a liquour like our butter Sod away with oyl in a new earthen pot it drives away an Epilepsy It makes a rare oyntment for the gout see the composition in Trallianus The tongue hanged on helps memory and women in child-birth the gall stops fluxes The hart wrapt in black-wool first shorn helps a quartan ague to omit fables about raising storms making mute c. with the heart tongue c. you must know it is Pliny who though learned and usefull studied too much to delight men In Egypt they are pale In Arabia much smaller and of another colour as bright yellowish and red-spotted Wee have given here the shapes of the pale and black Chamaeleons CHAPTER VIII Of the Crocodile HE is a kind of Lizard so called from dreading the shores The Aegyptians terme him Chempsa the Turks thence Kimsak Kircher Picharouki Statius the Pharian wild-beast others Tenchea In Arsinoë Suchus in India Cayman It resembles a Lizard it is of a Saffran colour but white-bellied and there soft-skined elsewhere musket proofe Some have been seen six and twenty cubites long By Panama there are some of above a hundred foot The head is broad the snowt as a swines the gape reaches to the ears the eyes sharp and piercing and like a hogs he hath a rew of great bright strong teeth like a comb about sixty in all more in the upper jaw and sticking out seen when the mouth is shut The tongue cleaves and is uselesse The under jaw he stirs not the testicles cling to the inner-loyns The back-bone is made up of sixty turning joynts tied by as many sinews the claws are very sharp bending somewhat toward the sides the tail is of the length of the rest of the body wherein is a finne of seven fingers to the end M. Scaurus was first who in his Edil-ship shewed five in his plays in an Euripus made for the time They are found in Africa Asia and America especially in Nilus and neighbouring pools in Niger in Ganges about Bengala in the river Bambotus near Atlas and not far from Chalcedon but small ones They love warm waters In Peru are none till you come to Pacra then they are frequent Some live in miry plashes on fish but are most greedy after mans flesh They prey also on beasts on land There was one taken that had swallowed three young ones About Arsinoë they were held holy and nourished of old by the Priests with bread flesh and wine Some gave them dainties rost-meat and mingled drinks The Shee lays sixty egges as big as Goose-egges and by a kind of divination where the Nile when it swells comes not Shee lays and hatches sixty in sixty daies Gyllius