head The breast is by the French-men called peculiarly Hampan his blood is not like other Beasts for it hath no Fibres or small veins in it and therefore it is hardly congealed His heart is very great as it so falleth out in all fearful Beasts having in it a bone like a Cross as shall be afterward manifested His belly is not of one fashion as it falleth out in all other which chew the cud He hath no gall which is one cause of the length of his life and therefore also are his bowels so bitter that the Dogs will not touch them except they be very fat The Achaian Harts are said to have their gall in their tails and others say that Harts have a gall in their ears The Harts of Briletum and Iharne have their reins quadrupled or four-fold The genital part is all nervy the tail small and the Hinde hath udders betwixt her thighs with four speans like a Cow Both male and female are wonderfully swift and subtile as shall be shewed in the discourse of their hunting They are also apt and cunning to swim although in their swimming they see no land yet do they wind it by their noses They chew the cud like other Beasts It is reported that when a Hart is stung by a Serpent that by eating Elaphoscum that is as some call it Harts-eye other Hart-thorn or grace of God others Wilde Ditany it presently cureth the wound and expelleth the poyson the same vertue they attribute to Polypodie against the wound of a Dart. Having thus entred into mention of their food it is to be farther observed that the males of this kinde will eat Dwall or Night-shade which is also called Deaths herb and they also love above all other food wilde Elder so as in the Summer time they keep for the most part in those places where these plants grow eating the leaves only and not the boughes or sprigs but the Hinde will eat neither of both except when she beareth a male in her belly and then also by secret instinct of nature she feedeth like a male They will also eat Serpents but whether for hatred to them or for medicine they receive by them it is questionable A Hart by his nose draweth a Serpent out of her hole and therefore the Grammarians derived Elaphos a Hart from Elaunein tous opheis that is of driving away Serpents I cannot assent to the opinion of Aelianus that affirmeth the Serpents follow the breath of a Hart like some Philtre or amorous cup for seeing that all Authors hold an hostility in natures betwixt them it is not probable that the Serpent loveth the breath of a Beast unto whose whole body he is an enemy with a perpetual antipathy And if any reply that the warm breath of a Hart is acceptable to the cold Serpent and that therefore she followeth it as a Dog creepeth to the fire or as other beasts to the beams of the Sun I will not greatly gain-say it seeing by that means it is most clear that the breath doth not by any secret force or vertue extract and draw her out of the den but rather the concomitant quality of heat which is not from the secret fire in the bones of the Harts throat as Pliny hath taught but rather from her ordinary expiration inspiration and respiration For it cannot be that seeing all the parts of a Serpent are opposite to a Hart that there should be any love to that which killeth her For my opinion I think that the manner of the Harts drawing the Serpent out of her Den is not as Aelianus and Pliny affirmeth by sending into the Cave a warm breath which burneth and scorcheth the Beast out of her Den but rather when the Hart hath found the Serpents nest she draweth the air by secret and violent attraction out from the Serpent who to save her life followeth the air out of her den as when a Vessel is broached or vented the Wine followeth the flying air and as a Cupping-glass draweth blood out of a scarified place of the body so the Serpent is drawn unwillingly to follow her destroyer and not willingly as Aelianus affirmeth Unto this opinion both Oribasius in his Commentaries upon the Aphorisms of Hippocrates and Guniterius his restorer do joyntly agree but the Serpent being thus drawn forth addeth greater force to her poyson whereupon the proverbial admonition did arise Cave ne incideris in serpentem cum extracta a latebris anhelitu cervi effugerit tum enim propter iracundiam vehementius ei venenum est that is Beware thou meet not with a Serpent drawn out of her hole by the breath of a Hart for at that time by reason of her wrath her poyson is more vehement After this self same manner do the Sea-Rams draw the Sea-Calfs hid in the Subterranean Rocks for by smelling they prevent the Air that should come unto them for refrigeration There is many times strange conflicts betwixt the Hart and the Serpent thus drawn forth for the Serpent seeing her adversary lifteth her neck above the ground and gnasheth at the Hart with her teeth breathing out very bitter hissings on the contrary the Hart deriding the vain endevour of his weak adversary readier to fight then powerful to harm hi suffereth him to embrace both his neck and legs with his long and thin body but at an instant teareth it into an hundred pieces But the most strange combates are betwixt the Harts and Serpents of Lybia where the hatred is deeper and the Serpents watch the Hart when he lyeth a sleep on the ground and being a multitude of them set upon him together fastening their poysonful teeth in every part of his skin some on his neck and breast some on his sides and back some on his legs and some hang upon his privy parts biting him with mortal rage to overthrow their foe The poor Hart being thus oppressed with a multitude and pricked with venemous pains assayeth to run away but all in vain their cold earthy bodies and winding tails both over-charge his strength and hinder his pace he then in a rage with his teeth feet and horns assaileth his enemies whose spears are already entred into his body tearing some of them in pieces and beating other asunder they never the less like men knowing that now they must dye rather then give over and yeeld to their pitiless enemy cleave fast and keep the hold of their teeth upon his body although their other parts be mortally wounded and nothing left but their heads and therefore will dye together with their foe seeing if they were asunder no compassion can delay or mitigate their natural unappeaseable hatred The Hart thus having eased himself by the slaughter of some like an Elephant at the sight of their blood bestirreth himself more busily in the eager battail and therefore treadeth some under foot in the blood of their fellows other he persueth with tooth and
And I am rather led to affirm thus much because there are skins annually brought to the Mart of Franckford out of Polonia cal'd Lascet which are no other then the Weesils of Novâ— grodela whose white skins are intermixed with grisseld And thus much shall suffice to have said of this Mouse Of the SOREX I Am of opinion that this kinde of Mouse belongeth to the Hasel Mouse before spoken of because it is wilde hath a hairy tail and sleepeth in the Winter all which things are by Pliny ascribed to the Sorex only this hindereth that he maketh the Sorex to have rough hairy ears and the Sorex of Germany hath bald ears For answer whereof this shall suffice that the other three notes being so great and pregnant there is no cause why the want of one and that so little as the hairs on the ears should deprive it of his naturall due and kinde The Italians and the French use this word Sorex for a domestical vulgar Mouse and so peradventure did the Antients before them but it is greater then the domestical Mouse although Plinies Sorex be neither greater nor lesser The Spaniards call a Sorex Sorace or Raton Pequenno The Illyrians Viemegka Myss by which word also they understand a Shrew-mouse The fibres of the intrails of the Sorex do encrease and decrease with the Moon so that the number of them do always answer the number of the days of her age Her ears as we have said are full of hairs but in the lowest part or tip thereof The reason of her name is taken from the skreeching voice she maketh in gnawing For it is a very harmful biting Beast cutting asunder with her teeth like a saw Some do derive the Greek word from Huras which anciently did signifie a Mouse and therefore they call this Syrax and Saurex but I lift not to stand any longer upon the name seeing the Beast it self affordeth little worthy matter to entreat of It is reported by Varro that in Arcadia there was a Hog so fat that a Sorex did eat into her flesh and made her nest and brought forth young ones therein which may very well be for such is the nature of a fat Swine that he will hardly rise to eat his meat or ease himself of his excrements And besides fatness stoppeth sense burying both the Nerves and Arteries very deep so that in the body of a man his fattest part is least sensible Lycinius the Emperor going about to restrain the insolency of the Eunuches and Courtiers called them Tineas Soricesque palatinos that is moths and Sorices of the Court. There was an ancient garment as Pliny writeth called Vestis Soriculata and this was very pretious in my opinion because it was garded or fringed with the skins of the Sorex If this Beast fall into any Wine or Oyl she corrupteth the same and it is to be recovered by the same means as we have formerly described in the vulgar Mouse It should seem there was great store of them in the days of Heliogabalus for he commanded as Lampridius writeth to be brought unto him not only a thousand of these Beasts but also a thousand Weesils and ten thousand vulgar Mâ—ce as we have shewed before in the story of the vulgar Mouse When the Sooth-sayers were about their divinations Pliny writeth that if they heard the squeaking of the Sorex they brake off and gave over their labour holding it unprofitable to go any further therein and it is also reported that the voyce of this Mouse gave occasion to Fabius Maximus to give over his Dictatorship and unto Caius Flaminius to give over the Mastership of the Horse-men such fear of silly Beasts was begotten in the mindes of gallant and magnanimous spirits by the unprofitable and foolish behaviour and doctrines of the Magitians It is said by Nigidius that these Sorices do sleep all the Winter and hide themselves like the Dor-mouse They also when they eat any corn do screetch and make a greater noise then other Mice whereby they bewray themselves in the dark unto their enemies and are killed which was the occasion of that proverbial speech of Parmeno in Terence Egomet meo indicio miser quasi Sorex perii Saint Austine and Saint Origen do also make use of this proverb the one in his Book of Order the other in a Homily upon Genesis which caused Erasmus to write in this manner Sed videbor ipse meis indiciis captus that is I have overthrown my self with my own tale These Sorices do make hollow the trees wherein Emets or Ants breed and there is perpetual hatred betwixt the Bittors and these one lying in wait to destroy the others young The Medicines of the Sorex Serenus and Pliny say that if a woman with childe do eat the sinews of a Sorex if her eyes be black so shall the Infants be likewise Si praegnans artus captivi Soricis edit Dicuntur foetus nigrantia lumina fingi The fat of these Beasts or of Dormice is very profitable against the Palsie The powder of the heads and tails anointed with Hony upon the eyes restoreth the clearness of sight and with Hony Attick the powder and fat of a Sorex burned helpeth running eyes and the same powder mingled with Oyl cureth bunches in the flesh There is another Mouse called by Mathaeolus Mus Napelli that is a Wolf-bane-mouse so called because it feedeth upon the roots of that Herb although there be some of opinion that it is not a creature but another little Herb growing near unto it for a counter-poyson And Marcellus also maketh mention of Napellus and Antinapellus whereunto I should easily condescend but that the eyesight of Mathaeolus leadeth me to the contrary For he writeth that he took one of them in the top of a high Mountain in Italy And Sylvaticus calleth this Mouse Mus Suring or Sucsinus and calleth it a Counter-poyson to Wolf-bane and that God might shew thus much unto men he causeth it to live upon the roots in testimony of his natural vertue destroying poyson and venemous herbs The Indian Mouse and divers other kindes of Mice according to their Countries I Do finde that divers times Mice do take their names from Regions wherein they inhabite which happeneth two manner of ways one because the form of their bodies will somewhat vary the other because not only in shape but also in wit they have some things in them common to Mice over and above the Mice of our Countries therefore we will briefly comprehend all their surnames of whatsoever regions they are in one order or Alphabet In the Oriental parts of the world there are great Mice as Alexander writeth of the quantity of Foxes who do harm both men and Beasts and although they cannot by their biting kill any man yet do they much grieve and molest them Americus Vespucius writeth that he found in an Island of the Sea being distant from Vlisbona a thousand leagues very
the forehead for we have shewed in other parts of the history that there are divers beasts that have but one horn and namely some Oxen in India have but one horn and some have three and whole hoofs Likewise the Bulls of Aonia are said to have whole hoofs and one horn growing out of the middle of their fore-heads Likewise in the City Zeila of Aethiopia there are Kine of a purple colour as Ludovicus Romanus writeth which have but one horn growing out of their heads and that turneth up towards their backs Caesar was of opinion that the Elk had but one horn but we have shewed the contrary It is said that Pericles had a Ram with one horn but that was bred by way of prodigy and not naturally Simeon Sâ—thi writeth that the Musk-cat hath also one horn growing out of the fore-head but we have shewed already that no man is of that opinion beside himself Aelianus writeth that there be Birds in Aethiopia having one horn on their fore-heads and therefore are called Vnicornes and Albertus saith there is a fish called Monoceros and hath also one horn Now our discourse of the Unicorn is of none of these beasts for there is not any vertue attributed to their horns and therefore the vulgar sort of Infidel people which scarsely believe any herb but such as they see in their own Gardens or any beast but such as is in their own flocks or any knowledge but such as is bred in their own brains or any birds which are not hatched in their own nests have never made question of these but of the true Unicorn whereof there were more proofs in the world because of the nobleness of his horn they have ever been in doubt by which distraction it appeareth unto me that there is some secret enemy in the inward degenerate nature of man which continually blindeth the eyes of God his people from beholding and believing the greatness of God his works But to the purpose that there is such a beast the Scripture it self witnesseth for David thus speaketh in the 92. Psalm Et erigetur cornu meum tanquam Monoâ—â—rotis That is my horn shall be lifted up like the horn of a Unicorn whereupon all Divines that ever wrote have not only collected that there is a Unicorn but also affirm the similitude to be betwixt the Kingdom of David and the horn of the Unicorn that as the horn of the Unicorn is wholesome to all beasts and creatures so should the Kingdom of David be in the generation of Christ And do we think that David would compare the vertue of his Kingdom and the powerful redemption of the world unto a thing that is not or is uncertain or fantastical God forbid that ever any man should so despight the holy Ghost For this cause also we read in Suidas that good men which worship God and follow his laws are compared to Unicorns whose greater parts as their whole bodies are unprofitable and untamable yet their horn maketh them excellent so in good men although their fleshy parts be good for nothing and fall down to the earth yet their grace and piety exalteth their souls to the heavens We have shewed already in the story of the Rhinocerot that Reem in Hebrew signifieth a Unicorn although Munster be of another opinion yet the Septuagints in the translation of Deut. 33. do translate it a Unicorn for the Rhinocerot hath not one horn but two Rabbi Solomon David Kimhi and Saadius do always take Reem and Karas for a Unicorn and they derive Reem from Rom which signifieth Altitudinem height because the horn of the Unicorn is lifted up on high Hereunto the Arabians agree which call it Barkeron and the Persians Bark the Chaldeans Remana In the 39. of Job the Lord speaketh in this manner to Job Numquid acquiescet Monocâ—ros ut serviat tibi aut ut moretur juxta praesepiâ— tua Numquid ligabis Monocerotem fune suo pro salco faciendo aut complanabit glebas vallium post te That is to say will the Unicorn rest and serve thee or tarry beside thy cratches Canst thou binde the Unicorn with a halter to thy plough to make furrows or will he make plain the clots of the Vallies Likewise in the prophesie of Esa the 34. chap. and in many other places of Scripture whereby God himself must needs be traduced if there be no Unicorn in the world Besides the Arabians as And Bellun writeth call this beast Alcherceden and say that it hath one horn in the fore-head which is good against poysons The Grecians call it Monokeros from whence Pliny and all the ancient Grammarians do call it Monoceros yet the divines both elder and later do name it by a more learned proper Latine word Vnicornis The Italians Alicornâ— Vnicorno Liocorno Leocorno the French Licorne the Spaniards Vnicorno the Germans Einhorne and the Ilyrians Gednorozecz And thus much for the name All our European Authors which write of beasts do make of the Unicorn divers kindes especially Pliny Ludovicus Romanus Paulus Venetus Nicholaus Venetus Aeneas Sylvius Albertus Magnus out of whose words we must gather the best description that we can of the Unicorn The Arcean Indians saith Pliny do hunt a certain wilde beast which is very curst untamable having one horn which in the head resembleth a Hart in the feet an Elephant in the tail a Boar and in the residue of the body a Horse the horn he saith is about two cubits long and the voice like the lowing of an Ox somewhat more shrill and they deny that this beast is ever taken alive Aelianus writeth hereof in this manner there are saith he certain Mountains in the midst of India unto the which the passage is very difficult where are abundance of wilde beasts and among other Unicorns which the Indians call Cartazonâ—ns who in their ripe age are as big as a Horse and their mane and hairs are yellow excelling in the celerity of their feet and bodies having feet cloven like an Elephants the tail of a Boar and one black horn growing out betwixt their eye-brows not smooth but rough all over with wrinckles and the same groweth to a most sharp point these things saith Aelianus by comparing of whose words with Pliny it is apparent they describe in these words but one and the same beast and so also doth Phyles whereby I gather that it is no other beast then the wilde Ass or at the least the wilde Ass cometh nearest to the Unicorn of all others for they agree in these things first in that both of them have one horn in the middle of the fore-head secondly in that both of them are bred in India thirdly in that they are both about the bigness of a Horse fourthly in their celerity and solitary life fifthly and lastly in their exceeding strength and untamable natures but herein they differ both in their feet and colours for the feet of the wilde Asses
up that milk spilt on the ground and afterwards the King drinketh up the residue and besides him no body that day except it be of the Kings linage or of the Countrey of Horiach for the people of that Countrey have liberty to tast thereof that day because of a battle which once they obtained for the great Cam. The property of this milk is to loosen the belly and because it is thin and hath no fat in it therefore it easily descendeth and doth not curdle in the stomach and it is said that the Scythians can keep it twelve dayes together therewithal satisfying their hunger and quenching their thirst And thus much shall satisfie for the natural discourses of Horses hereafter followeth the moral The moral discourse of Horses concerning Fictions Pictures and other devises ANd first of all for the moral dignity of Horses there is a celestial constellation called Hippos according to these Verses of Aratus thus translated Huic Equus ille jubam quatiens fulgore micanti Summum contingit caput alvo stellaque jungens Vna The Latins call this star Pegasus and they say that he is the Son of Neptune and Medusa who with striking his foot upon a Rock in Helicon a mountain of Boeotia opened a Fountain which after his name was called Hippocrene Others tell the tale in this sort at what time Bellerophon came to Praetus the Son of Abas the King of the Argives Antia the Kings wife fell in love with her guest and making it known unto him promised him half her husbands Kingdom if he would lie with her but he like an honest man abhorring so foul a fact utterly refused to accomplish the desire and dishonesty of the lustful Queen whereupon she being afraid lest he should disclose it unto the King prevented him by her own complaint informing the King that he would have ravished her when the King heard this accusation because he loved Bellerophon well would not give punishment himself but sent him to Schenobeus the Father of Queen Antia that he in defence of his Daughters chastity might take revenge upon him who presently cast him to Chimaera which at that time depopulated all the coast of Lycia but Bellerophon by the help of the Horse Pegasus did both overcome and avoid the monster and being weary of his life perceiving that there was no good nor truth upon the earth determined to forsake the world and flie to heaven who coming neer to heaven casting down his eyes to the earth trembled to see how far he was distant from it and so his heart fainting for fear fell down backward and perished but his Horse kept on his flight to heaven and was there placed among the Stars by Jupiter Euripedes telleth the tale otherwise for he saith that Chiron the Centaure had a Daughter nourished in the mountain Pelius which was called Theas and afterward Hippe because of her exceeding hunting on horse-back she was perswaded by Aeolus the Son of Hellen a Nephew of Jupiters to let him lie with her whereupon she conceived with childe and when the time of her deliverance came she fled from her Father into the woods for fear the loss of her Virginity should be known unto him but he followed her to see what was the cause of his Daughters departure whereupon she desired of the Gods that her father might not see her in travel her prayer was granted and she after her delivery was turned into a Mare and placed among the Stars Others say that she was a Prophetesse and because she revealed the counsels of the Gods was therefore metamorphozed in that shape in the place aforesaid Others say that because she gave over to worship Diana she lost her first presence But to return to the first tale of Bellerophon who after the death of Chimaera growing proud for his valor attempted to flie to heaven but Jupiter troubled his Horse with a Fury and so he shooke off his Rider who perished in the field Alecus apo tese alese because of his errour and Pegasus was placed in heaven But to come nearer to the description of the Poeticall Horse Albertus Magnus and some others say that it is a Beast bred in Ethiopia having the head and feet of a Horse but horned and wings much greater then the wings of an Eagle which he doth not lift up into the air like a bird but only stretcheth them out when he runneth whereby his only presence is terrible to all creatures unto whom he is enemy but especially to Men. But for the truth hereof although Pliny and some others seem to affirm as much yet will I set down nothing for truth and certainty because as the Poets call every swift Horse Volucres and Alipedes so the errour of that figure hath rather given occasion to the framing of this new Monster Pegasus then any other reasonable Allegory Likewise I know no cause why the Poets should fain that Ceres was turned into a Mare and hid her self in the herds of Oncius Neptune falling in love with her followed her to those fields and perceiving that he was deceived turned himself also into a Horse and so had to do with her whereat Ceres was grievously offended and fell into a great fury for which cause she was called Erinnys yet afterwards she washed her self in the River Ladon laying aside all her rage and fury at the fulness of time she brought forth Ation And the Arcodians also had a certain Den wherein they had a great remembrance of this ravishment of Ceres sitting in a Den wherein they say she hid her self from all creatures and whereunto they offer divine worship They picture her in a Colts skin sitting like a woman in all parts with a long garment down to her ancles but the head of a Horse with the pictures of many Dragons and other such wilde beasts holding in one of her hands a Dolphin and in the other a Dove By all which it is not uneasie for every man to know conceive their meaning that plenty of food signified by Ceres doth not only maintain Men Fowls Beasts and Fishes but also the immoderate use thereof draweth men to inordinate lust and concupiscence and that the Gods of the Heathen were more rather to be accounted Beasts then Men. Diana also among the Arcadians was called Eurippa for the finding out of those Mares which Vlysses had lost which Vlysses erected a statue for Neptune the great Rider and they say that Hippolytus being torn in pieces by Horses through the love of Diana and skill of Aesculapius by the vertue of certain herbs he was restored unto life again Whereupon Jupiter being sore vexed and angry with Aesculapius for such an invention deluding as it were the fury of the Gods killed him with lightning and thrust him down into hell because no wretched man would fear death if such devises might take place which fact Virgil describeth in these Verses At Trivia Hippolytum secret is alma recondit Sedibus
which doth ake will immediately drive away the pain and grief thereof The same doth very effectually and speedily help them which are troubled with the Gout or swelling in the joynts The flowre of Barley being mingled with the bloud of an Hyaena and fryed or baked over the fire and so taken doth very much asswage the wringings and wrinchings either in the guts or belly of a man or woman If the bloud of an Hyaena being hot be anointed on them which are infected with the Leprosie it will without delay very effectually cure them The Hyaena's flesh being eaten doth much avail against the bitings of ravenous Dogs but some are of opinion that the liver being only eaten is of more force and power to cure or heal them The nerves or sinews of an Hyaena being beaten to small powder and dryed and mingled with Frankincense together and so drunk doth restore fertility and plenty of seed in that woman which before was barren There is also for the biting of a ravenous Dog another excellent remedy which is this first to anoint the place so bitten with the fat or grease of a Sea-calf or else to give it in drink and then to make the operation more effectual mingle the marrow of an Hyaena and Oyl that cometh from the Mastick tree and Wax together and being so applyed and anointed upon the sore it will presently cure the same The same marrow of the Hyaena is very good and effectual against the pain and grief in the sinews as also for the looseness and weakness of the reins The marrow which proceedeth from the Chine bone of an Hyaena being mixed with his Gall and old Oyl altogether and so boiled until they come unto a soft temperance and mollisying medicine being anointed upon the sinews doth expel and force away an pain of grief thereof whatsoever The same marrow being bound unto the back of either man or woman who are troubled with vain phantasies or dreams in their sleep doth very speedily and very effectually help them The fat or grease of an Hyaena being butnt doth drive away all venemous Serpents from the place where it is so used The same being mingled with leaven and so being wrought into a plaister is a very good cure or remedy for the falling of the hair or the disease called the Foxes evill The left part of the brain of an Hyaena being either anointed upon the nostrils of either men or beasts is of such vertue that it will cure diseases upon them which are in a manner mortal For the sterility or barrenness of women the eye of an Hyaena being mixed with Licoras and the herb called Dill and so taken in drink is of such force and power that in three days it will make them fit for conception The teeth of an Hyaena either touched or bound in order unto the teeth of any man or woman who are troubled with the tooth-ach will presently ease the pain and vexation thereof One of the great teeth of an Hyaena being bound with a string unto any that are troubled in the night times with shadows and phantasies and which are frayed out of their sleep with fearful visions doth very speedily and effectually procure them ease and rest The tooth of an Hyaena called Alzabo being bound upon the right arm of any one which is either oblivious or forgetful and hanging down from the arm unto the middle finger or wrist doth renew and refresh their decayed memory The palat of an Hyaena being dryed and beaten to powder and then mingled with Egyptian Allum and so made hot and mixed altogether being three times turned in any ones mouth which hath either sore or ulcer in it will in small time procure them remedy and help of their vexation and trouble The flesh which groweth upon the hinder part of the neck being burned and then eaten or taken in drink doth very speedily help and cure the grief and aches of the loins The shoulders likewise being used in the aforesaid manner doth profit much for the healing of any who are vexed with any anguish or pain in their shoulders or sides The lungs being dryed and taken in drink do ease any either man or woman which is troubled either with Colick or Stone But being dryed into powder and mingled with Oyl and so anointed upon the belly it killeth the Worms and expelleth all aches away from the belly The Heart being used in the aforesaid manner and taken in drink doth ease and help all aches pains or griefs in the body whatsoever The white flesh being taken from the breast of an Hyaena and seven hairs and the genital of a Hart being bound all together in the skin or hide of a Buck or a Doe and afterwards hanged about the neck of a woman which is in travel will greatly hinder her for bringing forth her childe If there shall be any flesh or bones of men found in the body of a dead Hyaena being dryed and beaten to powder and then mixed with a certain perfume they will be very excellent to help the Gowt or drive away the Convulsion of the sihews The kell or caull wherein the bowels are contained being used in the aforesaid manner and also mixed with Oyl will be a present remedy against the burnings and inflamations of sores botches and Ulcers The chine bone of an Hyaena being bruised and beaten into small powder and so dryed and then mingled with the tongue and the right foot of a Sea-calf the gall of an Ox being added thereunto and all of them boyled or baked together and anointed upon the hide or skin of an Hyaena and so lapped about the legs or joynts of them which are troubled with the Gowt will in short time ease the pain and rid them altogether of the grief thereof The chine bone being also beaten to powder and given in Wine to drink is very profitable and necessary for those which are in sore travel or pain of childe-birth The first or eighth rib of the same Beast being beaten and mingled with a certain perfume is very good and medicinable for sores and botches which do break through the flesh Their flesh also being eaten doth quickly cure and heal the bitings or tearings of a ravenous Dog but their liver being so used is more effectual and speedy for the curing thereof The liver of the aforesaid Beast is also very curable for Agues or quartern Feavers being beaten to powder and drunk in Wine before the augmentation or second assaults thereof The same also is an excellent and speedy remedy for the wringings and aches of the belly as also for that grievous and painful disease called the Colick and Stone For the same diseases the gall of a Sea-scorpion and of a fish called Haelops and of a Sea-crab and of an Hyaena being beaten to powder and mixed together and so drunk in Wine is a very good and
doth very effectually heal them A Moul being bruised into small pieces and applyed unto the bites of a Shrew in the form of a plaister is a very excellent remedy for the curing of them Pitch and Trifoly being baked and rubbed very hot upon the bites of a Shrew is accounted a very medicinable cure but it is requisite that this fomentation be given unto none but such as are of a strong and powerful body and are also able to endure pain The liquor of the Herb called Southern-wood being given in Wine to drink doth very much profit those which are troubled and painted in their limbs with the bites of Shrews Wormwood being used in the like manner will cure those which are bitten by a Shrew The genital of a Lamb or Kid being mingled with four drams of the Herb called Aristolochia or Hart-wort and six drams of the sweetest Myrrh is very good and medicinable for curing of those which are bitten or stung with Shrews Scorpions and such like venemous Beasts The leaves of Coleworts being dryed mingled with flower and tempered together until they come into the form of a plaister will very much help against the venemous bites of the Shrew The seeds of Coleworts and the leaves of the same herb being mingled with Vinegar and the herb called Assa foetida beat or pounded together do very well and speedily cure the bites of the Shrews as also of a ravenous Dog if the same in due time be applyed thereunto The liquor also of the leaves of Coleworts being given in any kinde of drink is good and wholesome for the curing of the aforesaid bites or wounds The Nuts of a young Cypres tree being mixed with a certain syrup or potion made of Hony Water and Vinegar and afterwards drunk doth very speedily procure ease and help for those which are bitten by a Shrew The root of a white or black Thistle being beaten or bruised and given in drink doth very effectually help or cure those which are bitten by a Shrew The like vertue hath the herb called Rocket in it and also the seed thereof being given in any kinde of drink The gum or liquor which proceedeth from a kinde of Ferula being given in Wine to drink doth very much help and cure those which are bitten by a Shrew The same vertue also in it hath the root of the herb called Gentian or Bitterwort being given in Wine to drink One or two drams of the youngest or tendrest leaves of the Laurel tree being beaten small and given in Wine to drink doth speedily cure the sores or wounds which are bitten by a Shrew the same being also used in the said manner and given in some certain portion unto Horses to drink doth quickly help and heel them But there are some which before all other medicines do commend this for the best and chiefest that is to take the juyce which proceedeth from the leaves of the Lawrel tree and the leaves themselves being moist and new growing and to boil them in Wine and being once cooled to give it to any which is bitten by a Shrew and this will in very short space altogether help them A young Weesil being given in Wine to drink is accounted very medicinable for those which are bitten by a Shrew or stung by a Scorpion or any other venemous creature The herb called Baltsamint or Costmary the herb called Bartram or wilde Pellito the herb called Betony the herb called Water-mint or Water cresses the sweet and delicious gum called Storax as also the herb called Vervin being each of them severally by themselves either given in Wine to drink or applyed in the manner of a plaister or anointed upon the bites or wounds which come by the venemous teeth of a Shrew will very effectually cure the pain thereof The biting of a field Mouse or Shrew is very troublesome or grievous to all labouring Beasts for instantly after her bitings there do little red Pimples arise and there is most danger of death in those Beasts which she biteth when she is great with young for the afore-said pimples will then presently break after which the Beast so bitten will instantly die The Shrew doth also kill some labouring Beasts with poyson as chiefly Horses and Mules but especially and for the most part Mares which are great with young There are some which do affirm that if Horses or any other labouring creature do feed in that pasture or grass in which a Shrew shall put forth her venome or poyson in they will presently die In what place soever a Shrew shall bite in any creature it will be compassed with an exceeding hard swelling the Beast also being so bitten doth express his grief or sorrow with much pain and straining his body doth likewise swell all over his eyes do in a manner weep the swelling in his body doth sq 〈…〉 e out matter or filthy putrifaction he voideth poyson out of his belly and doth vo 〈…〉 it all su 〈…〉 nce up assoon as ever he receiveth it If an Ass being great with young be bitten by this Beast it is a very great chance if she scape death But if the Shrew do bite any Beast when she is great with young it is known by these signes or marks there will certain red pimples compass the sore round about and also spread themselves over all the body of the bitten Beast and will in short space destroy him except there be procured some present remedy The Normans in France do suppose the Shrew to be a Beast so full of venom and poyson that if he shall but pass over either an Ox or a Horse lying down along upon the ground it will bring such a dangerous disease upon them that the Beast over which she shall pass shall be lame about the loins or shall seem as if he were immoveable and that he can be cured by no other means but by the same Shrew who either of his own accord or by compulsion must pass over the contrary side of the Beast and that then he will be cured which thing I do hold to be very vain and not to be believed For the curing of Beasts which are bitten by a Shrew thou shalt boil the seed of Parsly together with Wine and Oyl and thou shalt cut the place which swelleth with a Pen-knife by which the poyson may issue forth and the wound being pointingly pulled or torn may wax raw if by these the inflammation do wax more servent and hot thou shalt eat the sore with Iron instruments burning with fire taking away some part of that which is whole and sound then shalt thou renew the wound with the Iron instruments being governed rightly by which the corruption may issue forth but if that part do chance to swell by the exculceration thou shalt sprinkle Barley being burned and dryed therein but before you do this it is meet
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
in the folds of their own accord they will lick thereof and it will encrease in them great appetite In the Winter time when they are kept within doores they must be fed with the softest hay such as is cut down in the Autumn for that which is riper is less nourishable to them In some Countries they lay up for themselves especially green Ewe leaves or Elm three-leaved-grass sowed-vines and chaffe or pease when other things fail where there are store of Vines they gather their leaves for Sheep to eat thereof without all danger and very greedily and I may say as much of the Olive both wilde and planted and divers such other plants all which have more vertue in them to fat and raise your beast if they be aspersed with any salt humor and for this cause the Sea-wormwood excelleth all other herbs or food to make fat Sheep And Myndius writeth that in Pontus the Sheep grow exceeding fat by the most bitter and vulgar Wormwood Beans encrease their milk and also Three-leaved-grass for that is most nourishable to the Ews with young And it is observed for the fault which in Latine is called Luxuria segetum and in English ranckness of corn there is no better remedy then to turn in your Sheep in May when the ground is hard if not before for the Sheep loveth well to crop such stalks and also the corn will thrive never the worse for in some places they eat it down twice and in the Countrey about Babylon thrice by reason of the great fertility thereabouts and if they should not do so it would turn or run all into stalk and idle and unprofitable leaves The same extasie is reported to follow Sheep when they have eaten Eringâ—a that we have expressed also in the History of Goats namely that they all stand still and have no power to go out of their pastures till their Keeper come and take it out of their mouths It is reported that they are much delighted with the herb called Laserpitium which first purgeth them and then do fat them exceedingly It is therefore reported that in Cyrene there hath been none of this found for many years because the Publicans that hire the pastures are enemies to Sheep For at the first eating thereof the Sheep will sleep and the Goat will fall a neezing In India and especially in the Region of the Prasians it raineth many times a dew like liquid Honey falling upon the herbs and grass of the earth wherefore the shepheards lead their flocks unto those places wherewithal their cattle are much delighted and such as is the food they eat such also is the taste of the milk they render neither need they to mingle Honey with their Milk as the Graecians are constrained to do for the sweetness of that liquor saveth them of that charge Such a kinde of dew the Hebrews call Manna the Gracians Aeromelos and Drosomelos the Germans Himmelhung and in English Honey-dew but if this be eaten upon the herbs in the month of May it is very hurtful unto them We have shewed already that in some parts of Africk and Aethiopia their Sheep eat flesh and drink milk and it is apparent by Philostratus that when Apollonius travelled towards India in the Region Pegades inhabited by the Orite they fed their Sheep with fishes and so also they do among the 〈…〉 nian Indians which do inhabit the Sea-coasts and this is as ordinary with them as in Caria to feed their Sheep with figs because they want grass in that Country and therefore the flesh of the Sheep doth tast of fish when it is eaten even as the flesh of Sea-fouls The people of that Countrey are called Ichthyâ—phagi that is fish-eaters Likewise the Sheep of Lydia and Macedonia their Sheep grow fat with eating of fishes Aenius also writeth of certain fishes about the bigness of Frogs which are given unto Sheep to be eaten In Arabia in the Province of Aden their Oxen Camels and Sheep eat fishes after they be dryed for they care not for them when they be green the like I might say of many other places generally it must be the care of the shepheard to avoid all thorny and stony places for the feeding of his Sheep according to the precept of Virgil Si tibi lanicium curae primum aspera sylva Lappaeque tribulique absint Because the same thing as he writeth maketh them bald and oftentimes scratcheth their skin asunder his words are these Turpis oves tentat scabies cum tonsis illotus ad haesit Sudor hirsuti secuêrunt corpora vepres Although a Sheep be never so sound and not much subject to the Pestilence yet must the shepheard regard to feed it in choice places for the fat fields breed strait and tall Sheep the hills and short pastures broad and square Sheep the Woods and Mountain places small and slender Sheep but the best places of all are the plowed grounds Although Virgil prescribeth his shepheard to feed his flock in the morning according to the manner of the Countrey wherein he lived for the middle part of the day was over hot and not fit for cattel to eat in yet other Nations especially Germany and England and these Northern parts of the world may not do so The whole cunning of shepheards is excellently described for the ordering of their Sheep in these verses following Ergo omni studio glaciem venâ—osque nivales Quo minus est illis curae mâ—rtalis egestas Avertes victumque feres virgea laetus Pabula nec toâ—a claudes foenilia bruma Al vero Zephyr is cum laeta vocantibus aest is In saltus utrumque gregem atque in pascua mittes Luciferi primo cum sydere frigida rura Carpamus dum mane novum dum gramina canent Et ros in tenera pecori gratissimus herba est Inde ubi quarta sitim coeli collegerit hora Et cantu querulae rumpent arbusta cicadae Ad puteos aut alta greges ad stagna jubâ—to Currentem illignis petare canalibus undam Aestibus at mediis umbrosam exquirere vallem Sicubi magna Jovis antiquo robore quercus Ingentes tendat ramos aut sicubi nigrum Ilicibus crâ—bris sacra nemus occubet umbra Tum tenues dare rursus aquas pascere rursus Solis ad occasum cum frigidus aeâ—a vesper Temperat saltus reficit jam roscida luna Litioraque halcyonem resonant acanthida dumi When they return from their feeding the shepheard must regard that he put them not into the folds hot and if the time of the year be over hot let them not be driven to pastures a far off but seed them in those which are near and adjacent to their folds that so they may easily have recourse unto the shadow they ought not also to be turned out clustering al together but dispersed abroad by little and little neither must they be milked while they are hot until they
he may first approve the same in Swines bloud but if it shew not the same it may in a manner shew the like action For although it be somewhat inferiour unto mans bloud yet at the least it is like unto it by knowledge whereof we hope we shall bring by the use thereof more full and ample profit unto men For although it do not fully answer to our expectation notwithstanding there is no such great need that we should prove mens bloud For the encouraging of a feeble and diminished Horse Eumelius reporteth the flesh of Swine being hot mingled in wine and given in drink to be exceeding good and profitable There also ariseth by Swine another excellent medicine against divers perillous diseases which is this to kill a young gelded Boar Pig having red hairs and being of a very good strength receiving the fresh bloud in a pot and to stir it up and down a great while together with a stick made of red Juniper casting out the clots of the bloud being gathered while it is stirring Then to cast the scrapings of the same Juniper and stir the berries of the Juniper in the same to the quantity of seven and twenty but in the stirring of the same let the clots be still cast out Afterwards mingle with the same these hearbs following Agrimony Rue Phu Scabious Betony Pimpernel Succory Parsly of each a handfull But if the measure of the bloud exceed three pints put unto it two ounces of Treacle but if it shall be bigger for the quantity of the bloud you shall diminish the measure of the Treacle But all things ought to be so prepared that they may be put to the bloud coming hot from the Boar. These being mixed all together you must draw forth a dropping liquor which you must dry in the sun being diligently kept in a glasse-vessell for eight dayes together which you must do once every year for it will last twenty years This medicine is manifestly known to be a great preservative against these diseases following namely the Plague impostumes in the head sides or ribs as also all diseases whatsoever in the Lungs the inflammation of the Milt corrupt or putrified bloud the Ague swellings in the body shaking of the heart the Dropsie heat in the body above nature evill humors but the principallest and chiefest vertue thereof is in curing all poysons and such as are troubled with a noysome or pestilent Fever Let him therefore who is troubled with any of the aforesaid diseases drink every morning a spoonful or four or five drops of the same liquor and sweat upon the same and it will in very short time perfectly cure him of his pain Some also do use Almonds pounded or beaten in the bloud against the Plague the liquor being extracted forth by the force of fire A young Pig being killed with a knife having his bloud put upon that part of the body of any one which is troubled with warts being as yet hot come from him will presently dry them and being after washed will quite expell them away The bloud of a Sow which hath once pigged being anointed upon women cureth many diseases in them The brains of a Boar or Sow being anointed upon the sores or Carbuncles of the privy members doth very effectually cure them the same effect also hath the bloud of a Hog The dugs of a woman anointed round about with the bloud of a Sow will decrease lesse and lesse A young Pig being cut in pieces and the bloud thereof anointed upon a Womans dugs will make them that they shall not encrease Concerning the grease of Swine it is termed diversly of all the Authors for the Grecians call it Stear Choirion and Oxungion for the imitation of the Latin word Axungia but Marcellus also applyeth Axungia to the fat of other creatures which among the ancient Authors I do not finde for in our time those which in Latin do call that fat Axungia which encreaseth more solid between the skin and the flesh in a Hog a Man a Brock or Badger a Dor-mouse a Mountain-mouse and such like The fat of Swine they commonly call Lard which groweth betwixt the skin and the flesh in expressing the vertues of this we will first of all shew how it is to be applyed to cures outwardly and then how it is to be received inwardly next unto Butter it hath the chiefest commendations among the antients and therefore they invented to keep it long which they did by casting some salt among it neither is the reason of the force of it obscure or uncertain for as it feedeth upon many wholesome herbs which are medicinable so doth it yeeld from them many vertuous operations and besides the physick of it it was a custom for new marryed wives when they first of all entred into their husbands house to anoint the posts thereof with Swines grease in token of their fruitfulness while they were alive and remainder of their good works when they should be dead The Apothecaries for preparation of certain Oyntments do geld a male sucking Pig especially such a one as is red and take from his reins or belly certain fat which the Germans call Schmaer and the French Oing that is Vnguentum the husbandmen use Swines grease to anoint the axle trees of their Carts and carriages and for want thereof they take putrified Butter and in some Countries the gum that runneth out of Pine trees and Fir trees with the scum of Butter mingled together and this composition taketh away scabs and tetters in Men but it is to be remembred that this grease must be fresh and not salted for of salt grease there is no use but to skowre those things that are exulcerated The antients deemed that this is the best Grease which was taken from the reins of the Hog washed in rain water the veins being pulled out of it and afterwards boyled in a new earthen pot and so preserved The fat of Swine is not so hot and dry as the fat of other beasts the chief use of it is to moisten to fasten to purge and to scatter and herein it is most excellent when it hath been washed in Wine for the stale salt grease so mixed with Wine is profitable to anoint those that have the Plurifie and mingled with ashes and Pitch easeth inflammations fistulaes and tumors and the same virtue is ascribed to the fat of Foxes except that their fat is hotter then the Swines and lesse moist likewise ashes of Vines mingled with stale grease of Hogs cureth the wounds of Scorpions and Dogs and with the spume of Nitre it hath the same vertue against the bitings of Dogs It is used also against the French disease called the French pox for they say if the knees of a Man be anointed therewith and he stand gaping over it it will draw a filthy matter out of his stomach and make him vomit By Serenus it is prescribed to be anointed upon the knees
unto this which is thus Take of Bryony Opopanax of the root of Iris Illirica and of the root of Rosemary and of Ginger of each of these three drams of Aristolochia five drams of the best Turpentine of wilde Rue of each three drams of the meal of Orobus two drams make them into Trochisces with Wine every one weighing one scruple and a half or two scruples to be given in Wine Galen in his second Book De antidotis chapter 49. discourseth of a certain Theriacal medicament called Zopyria antidotus so taking the name of one Zopyrus which was notable against all poysons and bitings of venomous creeping creatures This Zopyrus in his Letters written unto Mithridates sollicited him very much that he would make some experiment of his Antidote which as he put him in minde he might easily do by causing any one that was already condemned to die to drink down some poyson aforehand and then to take the Antidote or else to receive the Antidote and after that to drink some poyson And put him in remembrance to try it also in those that were wounded any manner of way by Serpents or those that were hurt by Arrows or Darts anointed or poysoned by any destroying venom So all things being dispatched according to his praemonition the Man notwithstanding the strength of the poyson was preserved safe and sound by this alexipharmatical medicine of Zopyrus Matthiolus in his Preface upon the sixth Book of Dioscorides entreating of Antidotes and preservatives from poyson saith that at length after long study and travail he had found out an Antidote whose vertue was wonderful and worthy admiration and it is a certain quintessence extracted from many simples which he setteth down in the same place He saith it is of such force and efficacie that the quantity of four drams being taken either by it self or with the like quantity of some sweet senting Wine or else with some distilled water which hath some natural property to strengthen the heart if that any person hath either been wounded or strucken of any venomous living thing and that the patients life be therewith in danger so that he hath lost the use of his tongue seeing and for the most part all his other senses yet for all that by taking this his Quintessence it will recover and raise him as it were out of a dead sleep from sickness to health to the great astonishment and admiration of the standers by They that desire to know the composition of this rare preservative let them read it in the Author himself for it is too long and tedious to describe it at this time There be besides these compounds many simple medicines which being taken inwardly do perform the same effect as namely the Thistle whereupon Serenus hath these verses following Carduus nondum doctis fullonibus aptus Ex illo radix tepido potatur in amni That is to say The root of Teasil young for Fullers yet unfit Drunk in warm water venom out doth spit That Thistle which Qu. Serenus here understandeth is properly that plant which of the Greeks is called Scolymos Yet it is taken sometimes for other prickly plants of the same kinde as for both the Chamaeleons Dipsacos or Labrum Veneris Spina alba Eryngium and some other But Dioscorides attributeth the chiefest vertue against poysons to the Thistle called Chamaeleon albus and to the Sea-thistle called Eryngium marinum which some call Sea-hul or Hulver for in his third book and ninth chapter entreating of Chamaeleon albus he saith thus The root of it taken with Wine inwardly is as good as Treacle against any venom and in the 21 chapter of the same Book Eryngium is saith he taken to good purpose with some Wine against the biting of venomous creatures or any poyson inwardly taken And the same Serenus adscribeth to the same vertue to the Harts curd or rennet as followeth Cervino ex soetu commixta coagula viâ—o Sumantur quaeres membris agit atra venena In English thus Wine mixt with Rennet taken from a Hart So drunk doth venom from the members part He meaneth a young Hart being killed in the Dams belly as Pliny affirmeth also the same in his 8. Book and 30. chapter in these words The chiefest remedy against the biting of Serpents is made of the Coagulum of a Fawn kill'd and cut out of the belly of his Dam. Coagulum is nothing else but that part in the belly which is used to thicken the Milk Proderit caulem cum vino haurire sambuci Qu. Serenus Which may be Englished thus In drink the powder of an Elder-stalk Gainst poison profiteth as some men talk That vertue which Serenus here giveth to the stalk of Dwarf Elder for that is meant in this place the same effect Dioscorides attributeth to the root in his fourth Book and Pliny to the leaves The herb called Betony is excellent against these foresaid affects and by good reason for the greatest part of poysons do kill through their excess of coldness and therefore to overcome and resist them such means are necessary by which natural and lively heat is stirred up and quickned and so the poyson hindred from growing thick together and from coagulation Again all men do agree that those medicines are profitable which do extenuate as all those do which have a property to provoke urine and Betony is of this quality and therefore being taken with Wine it must needs do good in venomous bitings and that not only in the bitings of Men and Apes but in Serpents also Radish also hath the same quality being taken with Vinegar and Water boiled together 〈◊〉 else outwardly applyed as Serenus affirmeth Sive homo seu similis turpissima bestia nobis Vulnera dente dedit virus simul intulit atrum Vetonicam ex duro prodest assumere Baccho Nec non raphani cortex decocta medetur Si trita admorâ—is fuerit circumlita membris In English thus If Man or Ape a filthy beast most like to us By biting wound and therein poyson thrust Then Betony in hard Wine steeped long Or rinde of Radish sod as soft as pap Do heal applyed to the members stâ—â—g There be certain herbs and simples as wilde Lettice Vervin the root called Rhubarb Agarick Oyl of Oliander and the leaves of the same the seeds of Peony with a great number a little before described that being taken either inwardly or outwardly in juyce or powder do cure poyson yea though it be received by hurt from envenomed arrows shafts or other warlike engines and weapons for the Arabians Indians the Galls now tearmed French-men and Scythians were wont to poyson their arrows as Paulus Orosius in his third Book testifieth of the Indians where he writeth how Alexander the Great in his conquering and winning of a certain City under the government of King Ambira lost the greatest part there of his whole Army with envenomed darts and quarrels And Celsus in his fifth Book saith that
other with their fore-feet they remain very long time in that act inasmuch as if they were very fat at their first entrance they disjoin not themselves again till they be made lean Immediately after they have conceived they betake themselves to their dens where they without meat grow very fat especially the males only by sucking their fore-feet When they enter into their den they convey themselves in backwards that so they may put out their foot-steps from the sight of the hunters The males give great honor to the females great with young during the time of their secresie so that although they lie together in one cave yet do they part it by a division or small ditch in the midst neither of them touching the other The nature of all of them is to avoid cold and therefore in the Winter time do they hide themselves chusing rather to suffer famine then cold lying for the most part three or four months together and never see the light whereby their guts grow so empty that they are almost closed up and stick together When they first enter into their den they betake themselves to quiet and rest sleeping without any awaking for the first fourteen dayes so that it is thought an easie stroke cannot awake them But how long the females go with young is not certain some affirm three months others but thirty dayes which is more probable for wild beasts do not couple themselves being with young except a Hare and a Linx and the Bears being as is already said very lustful to the intent that they may no longer want the company of their males do violently cast their Whelps and so presently after delivery do after the manner of Conies betake themselves to their lust and nourishing their young ones both together and this is certain that they never come out of their caves till their young ones be thirty dayes old at the least and Pliny precisely affirmeth that they litter the thirtyeth day after their conception and for this cause a Bear bringeth forth the least whelp of all other great beasts for their whelps at their first littering are no bigger then rats nor longer then ones finger And whereas it hath been believed and received that the whelps of Bears at their first littering are without all form and fashion and nothing but a little congealed blood like a lump of flesh which afterwards the old one frameth with her tongue to her own likeness as Pliny Solinus Aelianus Orus Oppianus and Ovid have reported yet is the truth most evidently otherwise as by the eye-witness of Joachimus Rhetious and other is disproved only it is littered blind without eyes naked without hair and the hinder legs not perfect the fore-feet folded up like a fist and other members deformed by reason of the immoderate humor or moystness in them which also is one cause why the Womb of the Bear cannot retain the seed to the perfection of her young ones They bring forth sometimes two and never above five which the old Bear daily keepeth close to her brest so warming them with the heat of her body and the breath of her mouth till they be thirty days old at what time they come abroad being in the beginning of May which is the third Month from the Spring The old ones being almost dazled with long darkness coming into light again seem to stagger and reel to and fro and then for the straightness of their guts by reason of their long fasting do eat the hearb Arum commonly called in English Wake-Robbin or Calves-foot being of very sharp and tart taste which enlargeth their guts and so being recovered they remain all the time their young are with them more fierce and cruel then at other times And concerning the same Arum called also Dracunculus and Oryse there is a pleasant vulgar tale whereby some have conceived that Bears eat this herb before their lying secret and by vertue thereof without meat or sense of cold they pass away the whole Winter in sleep There was a certain Cow-herd in the Mountains of Helvetia which coming down a hill with a great Caldron on his back he saw a Bear eating of a root which he had pulled up with his feet the Cow-herd stood still till the Bear was gone and afterward came to the place where the beast had eaten the same and finding more of the same root did likewise eat it he had no sooner tasted thereof but he had such a desire to sleep that he could not contain himself but he must needs lie down in the way and their fell asleep having covered his head with the Caldron to keep himself from the vehemency of the told and their slept all the Winter time without harm and never rose again till the Spring time Which fable if a man will believe then doubtless this hearb may cause the Bears to be sleepers not for fourteen days but for fourscore days together The ordinary food of Bears is fish for the Water-bear and others will eat fruits Apples Grapes Leaves and Pease and will break into Bee-hives sucking out the Hony Likewise Bees Snayls and Emmets and flesh if it be lean or ready to putrifie but if a Bear do chance to kill a Swine or a Bull or Sheep he eateth them presently whereas other Beasts eat not hearbs if they eat flesh likewise they drink water but not like other beasts neither sucking it or lapping it but as it were even biting at it Some affirm that Bears do wax or grow as long as they live that there have been seen some of them five cubits long yea I my self saw a Bears skin of that length and broader then an Oxes skin The head of a Bear is his weakest part as the hand of a Lyon is the strongest for by a small blow on his head he hath often been strucken dead the bones of the head being very thin and tender yea more tender then the beak of a Parrot The mouth of a Bear is like a Hogs mouth but longer being armed with teeth on both sides like a saw and standing deep in his mouth they have very thick lips for which cause he cannot easily or hastily with his teeth break asunder the hunters nets except with his fore-feet His neck is short like a Tygers and a Lyonâ— apt to bend downwards to his meat his belly is very large being uniform and next to it the intrals as in a Wolf It hath also four speans to her Paps The genital of a Bear after his death waxeth as hard as horn his knees and elbows are like to an Apes for which cause they are not swift or nimble his feet are like hands and in them and his loins is his greatest strength by reason whereof he sometimes setteth himself upright upon his hinder legs the pastern of his leg being fleshy like a Cammels which maketh them unfit for travel they have
being taken from it and the little skins appearing therein cleansed away and so it hath among many other these operations following Drunk with Vinegar it is good against all venom of Serpents and against the Chameleon but with this difference against the Scorpion with wine against Spiders with sweet water against the Lizzards with Myrtite against Dipsas and Cerastes with Oponax or wine made of Rew and against other-Serpents with wine simply Take of every one two drams for a cold take it a scruple and a half in four cups of wine used with Ladanum it cureth the Fistulaes and Ulcers provoking sneezing by smelling to it procureth sleep they being anointed with it Maiden-weed and Conserve of Roses and being drunk in water helpeth Phrensie and with the Roses and Maiden-weed aforesaid easeth head-ach being laid to the head like a plaister it cureth all cold and windy affections therein or if one draw in the smoak of it perfumed though the pain be from the mothers womb and given in three cups of sweet Vinegar fasting it helpeth the Falling sickness but if the person have often fits the same given in a Glyster giveth great ease Then must the quantity be two drams of Castoreum one sextary of honey and oil and the like quantity of water but in the fit it helpeth with Vinegar by smelling to it It helpeth the Palsie taken in Rew or wine sod in Rew so also all heart trembling ach in the stomach and quaking of the sinews It being infused into them that lie in Lethargies with Vinegar and Conserve of Roses doth presently awake them for it strengthneth the brain and moveth sternutation It helpeth oblivion coming by reason of sickness the party being first purged with Hiera Ruffi Castoreum with oil bound to the hinder part of the head and afterward a dram drunk with M 〈…〉 rate also taken with oil cureth all Convulsion proceeding of cold humors if the Convulsion be full and perfect and not temporal or in some particular member which may come to passe in any sickness The same mixed with hony helpeth the clearness of the eyes and their inflamations likewise used with the juice of Popy and infused to the ears or mixed with hony helpeth all pains in them With the seed of Hemlocks beaten in Vinegar it sharneth the sense of hearing if the cause be cold and it cureth toothach infused into that ear with oil on which side the pain resteth for Hippocrates sent unto the wife of Aspasius complaining of the pain in her cheek and teeth a little Castoreum with Pepper advising her to hold it in her mouth betwixt her teeth A perfume of it drawn up into the head and stomach easeth the pains of the lights and intrails and given to them that sigh much with sweet Vinegar fasting it recovereth them It easeth the Cough and distillations of rhume from the head to the stomach taken with the juyce of black Popy It is preservative against inflamations and pains in the guts or belly although the belly be swoln with cold windy humors being drunk with Vinegar or Oyxycrate it easeth the Colick being given with Annis beaten small and two spoonfuls of sweet water and it is found by experiment that when a horse cannot make water let him be covered over with his cloth and then put underneath him a fire of coals wherein make a perfume with that Castoreum till the Horses belly and cods smell thereof then taking away the coals walk the horse up and down covered and he will presently stale To soften the belly they use Castoreum with sweet water two drams and if it be not forcible enough they take the root of a set Cucumber one dram and the some of Salt Peter two drams It is also used with the juice of Withy and decoction of Vinegar applyed to the reins and genital parts like a plaister against the Gonorrhaean passion It will stir up a womans monethly courses and cause an easie travail two drams being drunk in water with Penny-royal And if a Woman with childe go over a Beaver she will suffer abortment and Hippocrates affirmeth that a perfume made with Castoreum Asses dung and Swines grease openeth a closed womb There is an Antidote called Diacostu made of this Castoreum good against the Megrim Falling sickness Apoplexies Palsies and weakness of lims as may be seen in Myrepsus against the impotency of the tongue trembling of the members and other such infirmities These vertues of a Beaver thus described I will conclude this discourse with a History of a strange beast like unto this related by Dunranus Campus-bellus a noble Knight who affirmed that there are in Arcadia seaven great lakes some 30 miles compass and some lesse whereof one is called Garloil out of which in Anno 1510 about the midst of Summer in a morning came a beast about the bigness of a water Dog having feet like a Goose who with his tail easily threw down small trees and presently with a swift pace he made after some men that he saw and with three strokes he likewise overthrew three of them the residue climbing up into trees escaped and the beast without any long tarrying returned back again into the water which beast hath at other times been seen and it is observed that this appearance of the Monster did give warning of some strange evils upon the Land which story is recorded by Hector Boethius Of the BISON. This Bison is called Taurus Paeonicus the Paeonian Bull whereof I finde two kinds one of greater and another of lesser size called the Scotian or Calydonian Bison whereof you shall see the picture and qualities at the foot of this History The greater is as big as any Bull or Oxe being maned about the neck and back like a Lion and hath hair hanging down under his chin or neather lip like a large beard and a rising or little ridge down along his face beginning at the height of his head and continuing to his nose very hairy his horns great and very sharp yet turning up towards his back and at the points hooked like the wilde Goats of the Alpes but much greater they are black of colour and with them through the admirable strength of his neck can he tosse into the air a horse and horseman both together They are as big as the Dextarii which are the greatest Stallions of Italy Their face looketh downward and they have a strange strength in their tongue for by licking they grate like a file any indifferent hard substance but especially they can therewith draw unto them any man or beast of inferior condition whom by licking they wound to death Their hair is red yellow or black their eyes very great and terrible they smell like a Moschus or Musk-cat and their mane reacheth over their shoulders shaking it irefully when he brayeth their face or forehead very broad especially betwixt their horns for Sigismond King of Polonia having kild one
prevail on him And of this game the lowest of the people also are very greedy laying many wagers making many matches and adventuring much time and price to see their event Among the Indians there are also other Oxen which are not much greater then great Goats who likewise in their yoaks are accustomed to run many races which they performe with as great speed as a Getican Horse and all these Oxen must be understood to be wilde Oxen. There be Oxen in Leuctria which Aristotle affirmeth have their ears and horns growing both together forth of one stem The Oxen of the Garamants and all other Neat among them feed with their necks doubled backward for by reason of their long and hanging horns they cannot eat their meat holding their heads directly straight The self same is reported of the beasts of Troglodytae in other things they differ not from other Oxen save only in the hardness of their skin and these Oxen are called Opisthonomi In the Province of Bangala are Oxen saith Paulus Venetus which equall the Elephant in height The Oxen in Mysia have no horns which other affirm also of the Scythians whereof they assign this reason because the universal bone of the skull hath no Commissure or joint opened and cannot receive any humour flowing unto it by reason of the hardness resisting and the veins belonging to this bone are weaker and smaller then in other for which also they are more unfit to convey nourishment to the place and so the neck of these beasts must needs be more dry and lesse strong because the veins are very little The Oxen have bunches growing on their backes like Camels and upon them do they bear their burdens being taught by the discipline of men to bend on their knee to receive their load Among the Nomades which winter their Cattel about the Marishes of 〈◊〉 there are also certain Cattel without horns whereof some are so naturally the other have their horns sawed off as soon as they grow forth because of all the parts of their body they only can endure no cold There be Oxen in Phrygia and Erythrea which are are of a flaming red colour of a very high and winding neck their horns are not like any other in the world for they are moved with their ears turning in aflexible manner sometime one way and sometime another The Syrian Oxen called Pâ—llet are of great strength having a broad forehead strong horns and fearful or couragious aspect being neither too fat or too lean of their bodies and they are used both for war and also for running The Oxen of the Belgian Provinces especially Friseland and Holland are also of very great stature for it hath been found by good experience that one of them hath weighed sixteen hundred pounds Troy weight and when the Earl of Hoochstate was at Michlin in Friseland there was presented unto him a great Ox which being killed weighed above two thousand five hundred twenty and eight pound The which thing being so strange as the 〈…〉 e had not been beforetime observed to the intent that succeeding ages might not mistrust such a memorable report the said Earl caused the full picture of the said Ox to be set up in his Palace with an inscription of the day and year when this Ox was delivered and killed Of COWES HAving thus noted briefly the Countries wherein Oxen Are bred and nourished with their several forms it must be also observed that Kine or Cowes which are the female of this kind are likewise found in all the places aforesaid with correspondent and semblable quantities qualities members parts and other accidents to such creatures appertaining excepted alwayes those things which belong to their sex which principally concern their milk And first of all the Kine of most plentiful Milk in all Italy are about Altinas a City of the Venetians neer Aquileia which Kine are of the smallest body and yet the greatest labourers who are not yoaked or coupled together by their necks as in other Countries but only by their heads The Cowes of Arabia have the most beautiful horns by reason of aboundance of humours which flow to them feeding them continually with such generous liquor as naturally doth encrease them The Pyrrhean Kie are not admitted to the Bull till they be four year old at the least which thing caused them to grow to a very high and tall stature whereof there were ever four hundred kept for the Kings store These Kie do give at one time seaven or eight gallons of Milk of Wine measure and they are so tall that the person which milketh them must stand upright or else stoop very little neither ought this seem incredible for it is evident that the Cowes of the Phoenicians were so high that a very tall man could not milk them except he stood upon a footstool The manner is in Germany and Helvetia that about April some take Kie to hire which have none of their own and other buy Kie to farme them out to other and the common price of a Cow for six moneths is payed in Butter and is rated at seventy five pounds twelve ounces to the pound which payment is due to the owner or money to that value Other again buy Kie and let them forth to farm reserving the Calf to themselves and if by the negligence of the Cow-herd or farmer of them the Cow cast the Calf then is the hirer bound to answer the value but if it miscarry without his negligence as oftentimes they may then is the losse equall to the Locatour or Farmer Yet it is noted that the Kie of greatest bodies are not alway best or most plentifull in Milke for the Cowes or Caeve of Altin 〈…〉 in Italy are of little bodies but yet very full of Milk The principal benefit of Cowes Milk is for making of Butter for the Milk it self the Cheese and Whay are not so fit for nonrishment of man as are those of Sheep and the reason is because the Milk of Kie is fattest of all other and therefore the name of Butter which is in Greek Boutyros and Boutyron and Butyrum in Latin is derived properly from this kinde of Cattel The Cow herds do also for their profit observe the pasture and food which doth above other multiplie Milk and therefore they give their Kie Trifolie or Three-leaved grasse and Medica which is a kinde of Claver grasse Vetches Pulse and Beans for Beans have a great virtue to multiply Milk likewise I have seen bundles of Hemlock or an herb much like unto it which we call Harts tongue given to milch Kie There is an herb much like Crow-foot called of the Germans Butterbloumen and in English Butter-flower which is used to colour Butter for thereby is the whiteness thereof taken away they will not eat Wal-wort or night-shade commonly called Deaths herb but if they eat herbs whereupon
Ptisick or short breath made into pils with Honey The powder of a Cowes horn mixed with Vinegar helpeth the morphew being washed or anointed therewith The same infused into the Nostrils stayeth the bleeding likewise mingled with warm water and Vinegar given to a Splenitick man for three daies together it wonderfully worketh upon that passion powder of the hoof of an Ox with water put upon the Kings evill helpeth it and with Water and Honey it helpeth the apostemes and swelling of the body and the same burned and put into drink and given to a Woman that lacketh Milk it encreafeth milk and strengtheneth her very much Other take the tongue of a Cow which they dry so long till it may be beaten into powder and so give it to a woman in white wine or broath The dust of the heel of an Ox or ancle bone taken in wine and put to the gums or teeth do fasten them and remove the ach away The ribs of Oxen beaten to powder do stay the flux of bloud and restrain the aboundance of monthly courses in women The ancle of a white Cow laid forty daies and nights into wine and rubbed on the face with white Linet taketh spots and maketh the skin look very clear Where a man biteth any other living creature seethe the flesh of an Ox or a Calf and after five daies lay it to the sore and it shall work the ease thereof The flesh being warm layed to the swellings of the body easeth them so also do the warm bloud and gall of the same beast The broath of beef healeth the loosness of the belly coming by reason of choler and the broath of Cowes flesh or the marrow of a Cow healeth the ulcers and chinks of the mouth The skin of a Ox especially the leather thereof warm in a shooe burned and applyed to pimples in the body or face cureth them The skin of the feet and nose of an Ox or Sheep sod over a soft and gentle fire untill there arise a certain scum like to glew from it and afterward dried in the cold windie air and drunk helpeth or at least easeth burstness very much The marrow of an Ox or the sewet helpeth the strains of sinews if they be anointed therewith If one make a small candle of Paper and Cowes marrow setting the same on fire under his browes or eye-lids which are bald without hair and often anointing the place he shall have very decent and comely hair grow thereupon Likewise the sewet of Oxen helpeth against all outward poison so in all Leprosies Botches and Scurviness of the skin the same mingled with Goose grease and poured into the eares helpeth the deafness of them It is also good against the inflamation of the ears the stupidity and dulness of the teeth the running of the eyes the ulcers and rimes of the mouth and stifness of the neck If ones bloud be liquid and apt to run forth of the body it may be well thickned and retained by drinking Ox bloud mingled with Vinegar and the bloud of a Cow poured into a wound that bleedeth stayeth the bloud Likewise the bloud of Oxen cureth the scabs in Dogs Concerning their Milk volumes may be written of the several and manifold virtues thereof for the Arcadians refused all medicine only in the Spring time when their beasts did eat grasse they drank Cowes milk being perswaded that the virtue and vigour of all good herbs and fruits were received and digested into that liquor for they gave it medicinally to them which were sick of the Ptisick of Consumption of an old Cough of the Consumption of the reins of the hardness of the belly and of all manner of poisons which burn inwardly which is also the opinion of all the Greek Physitians and the shell of a Walnut sod in Cow-milk and said to the place where a Serpent hath bitteh it cureth it and stayeth the poison The same being new and warm Gargarized into the throat helpeth the soreness of the kernels and all pain in the Arteries and swelling in the throat and stomach and if any man be in danger of a short breath let him take dayly soft pitch with the hearb Mummie and Harts suet clarified in a Cup of new Milk and ithath been proved very profitable Where the pains of the stomach come by sadness Melancholy or desperation drink Cow-milk Womans milk or Asses milk wherein a flint stone hath been sodden When one is troubled with a desire of going often to the stool and can egest nothing let him drink Cow-milk and Asses-milk sod together the same also heated with gads of Iron or steel and mingled with one fourth part of water helpeth the Bloudy flux mingled with a little Hony and a Buls gall with Cummin and gourds layed to the Navel and some affirm that Cow-milk doth help conception if a woman be troubled with the whiteflux so that her womb be indangered let her drink a purgation for her upper parts and afterward Asses milk last of all let her drink Cow-milk and new wine for forty daies together if need be so mingled that the wine appear not in the milk and it shall stay the flux But in the use of milk the rule of Hippocrates must be continually observed that it be not used with any sharp or tartd liquor for then it curdleth in the stomach and turneth into corruption The whay of Cow-milk mingled with Hony and Salt as much as the tast will permit and drunk looseneth the hardness of the belly The marrow of a Cow mingled with a little meal and with new cheese wonderfully stayeth the Bloudyflux It is affirmed that there is in the head of an Ox a certain little stone which only in the fear of death he casteth out at his mouth if this stone be taken from them suddenly by cutting the head it doth make children to breed teeth easily being soon tyed about them If a man or woman drink of the same water whereof an Ox drunk a little before it will ease the headach and in the second venter of a Cow there is a round black Tophus found being of no weight which is accounted very profible to Women in hard travails of child-birth The Liver of an Ox or Cow dryed and drunk in powder cureth the flux of boud The gall of a Cow is more forcible in operation then all other beasts gals whatsoever The gall of an Ox mixed with Hony draweth out any thorn or point of a needle or other Iron thing out of the flesh where it sticketh Likewise it being mingled with Alome and Myrrhe as thick as hony it cureth those evils which creep and annoy the privie parts laying upon it afterward Beets sod in wine It will not suffer the Kings evill to grow or spread it self if it be laid upon it at the beginning The hands washed in an Oxes gall and water are made white how black soever they were before time and if purblind eyes be anointed with
of the appearance of that Star which is about thirty dayes should be called Dog-dayes but only because then the heat of the Sun doth torment the bodies of men twice so much as at other times whereupon they attribute that to the Star which they call Sirius which rather is to be attributed to the Sun during that time every year Others fable that there is another Star close to him called Orion who was an excellent hunter and after his death was placed among the Stars and the Star Canis beside him was his hunting Dog but by this Star called of the Egyptians Solachim and of the Grecians Astrocynon cometh that Egyptian Cynick year which is accomplished but once in 1460 years Unto this Star were offered many sacrifices of Dogs in ancient time whereof there can be no cause in the world as Ovid well noteth in these Verses Pro Cane sidereo Canis hic imponitur arae Et quare fiat nil nisi nomen habet As among the Carians whereupon came the proverb of Caricum Sacrificium for they sacrificed a Dog in stead of a Goat and the young puppies or whelpes were also accounted amongst the most availeable sacrifices for the pacifying of their Idoll gods The Romans and Grecians had also a custom to sacrifice a Dog in their Lycaean and Lupercal feasts which were kept for the honour of Pan who defended their flocks from the Wolf and this was performed in February yearly either because that the Dogs were enemies to Wolves or else for that by their barking they draw them away in the night time from their City or else because they reckoned that a Dog was a pleasing beast to Pan who was the keeper of Goats so also the Grecians did offer a Dog to Hecate who hath three heads one of a Horse another of a Dog and the third head in the midst of a wilde man and the Romans to Genetha for the safe custody and welfare of all their houshold affairs Their houshold Gods called Lares were pictured and declared to the people sitting in Dogs-skins and Dogs sitting besides them either because they thereby signified their duty to defend the house and houshold or else as Dogs are terrors to Theeves and evill beasts so these by their assistance were the punishers of wicked and evill persons or rather that these Lares were wicked spirits prying into the affaires of every private houshold whom God used as executioners of his wrathful displeasure upon godless men There were Dogs sacred in the Temple of Aesculapius because he was nourished by their milk and Jupiter himself was called Cynegetes that is a Dog-leader because he taught the Arcadians first of all to hunt away noisome beasts by the help of Dogs so also they sacrificed a Dog to Mars because of the boldness of that creature To conclude such was the unmemorable vanity of the Heathens in their gods and sacrifices as it rather deserveth perpetuall oblivion then remembrance for they joyned the shapes of men and beasts together saith Arnobius to make gods Omnigenumque deum monstra latrator Anubis such were their Cynocephali Ophiocephali Anubis Hecate that is as much to say as half Men half Dogs half Serpents but generally all Monsters and for the many imaginary virtues the ancients have dreamed to be in Dogs they also in many places have given unto them solemn funerals in their hallowed Cemiteries and after they were dead they ceased not to magnifie them as Alexander which built a City for the honour of a Dog All this notwithstanding many learned and wise men in all ages have reckoned a Dog but a base and an impudent creature for the Flamen Dialis of Jupiter in Rome was commanded to abstain from touching of Dogs for the same reason that they were prohibited and not permitted to enter into the Castle of Athens and Isle of Delos because of their publick and shameless copulation and also that no man might be terrified by their presence from supplication in the Temples The foolishness of a Dog appeareth in this that when a stone or other thing is cast at him he followeth the stone and neglecteth the hand that threw it according to the saying of the Poet Arripit ut lapidem catulus morsuque fatigat Nec percussori mutua damna facit Sic plerique sinunt vexos elabier hostes Et quos nulla gravant noxia dente petunt Likewise men of impudent wits shameless behaviors in taking and eating meat were called Cynicks for which cause Athenaeus speaketh unto Cynicks in this sort You do not O Cynici lead abstinent and frugal lives but resemble Dogs and whereas this four-footed beast differeth from other creatures in four things you only follow him in his viler and baser qualities that is in barking and license of railing in voracity and nudity without all commendation of men The impudency of a Dog is eminent in all cases to be understood for which cause that audacious Aristogiton son of Cidimachus was called a Dog and the Furies of ancient time were pictured by black Dogs and a Dog called Erinnys Cerberus himself with his three heads signified the multiplicity of Devils that is a Lions a Wolfs and a fawning Dogs one for the Earth another for the Water and the third for the Air for which cause Hercules in slaying Cerberus is said to overcome all temptation vice and wickedness for so did his three heads signifie Other by the three heads understand the three times by the Lion the time present by the Wolf the time past and by the fawning Dog the time to come It is delivered by Authors that the root of Oliander or else a Dogs tooth bound about the arme do restrain the fury and rage of a Dog also there is a certain little bone in the left side of a Toade called Apocynon for the virtue it hath in it against the violence of a Dog It is reported by Pliny that if a live Rat be put into the pottage of Dogs after they have eaten thereof they will never bark any more and Aelianus affirmeth so much of the Weasils tail cut off from him alive and carryed about a man also if one carry about him a Dogs heart or liver or the skin wherein Puppies lie in their dams belly called the Secundine the like effect or operation is attributed to them against the violence of Dogs There is a little black stone in Nilus about the bigness of a Bean at first sight whereof a Dog will run away Such as these I saw at Lyons in France which they called Sea-beans and they prescribed them to be hanged about a Nurses neck to encrease her milk But to conclude the discourse of the baseness of a Dog those two proverbs of holy Scripture one of our Saviour Mat. 7. Give not that which is holy to Dogs and the other of St. Peter 2 Epistle Chap. 2. The Dog is returned to the vomit
formes of Beasts in the second order of milde and tamable beasts where you make mention of Scottish Dogs and in the winding up of your Letter written and directed to Doctor Turner comprehending a Catalogue or rehearsal of your Books not yet extant you promised to set forth in print and openly to publish in the face of the world among such your works as are not yet come abroad to light and sight But because certain circumstances were wanting in my breviary of English Dogs as seemed unto me I stayed the publication of the same making promise to send another abroad which might be committed to the hands the eyes the ears the minds and the judgements of the Readers Wherefore that I might perform that precisely which I promised solemnly accomplish my determination and satisfie your expectation which are a man desirous and capable of all kind of knowledge and very earnest to be acquainted with all experiments I will expresse and declare in due order the grand and general kind of English Dogs the difference of them the use the properties and the divers natures of the same making a tripartite division in this sort and manner All English Dogs be either of a gentle kinde serving the game a homely kinde apt for sundry necessary uses or a currish kind meet for many toies Of these three sorts or kinds so mean I to entreat that the first in the first place the last in the last room and the middle sort in the middle seat be handled I call them universally all by the name of English Dogs as well because England only as it hath in it English Dogs so it is not with the Scotish as also for that we are inclined and delighted with the noble game of hunting for we Englishmen are addicted and given to that exercise and painful pastime of pleasure as well for the plenty of flesh which our Parks and Forrests do foster as also for the opportunity and convenient leisure which we obtain both which the Scots want Wherefore seeing that the whole estate of kindly hunting consisteth principally in these two points in chasing the beast that is in hunting or in taking the bird that is in fowling It is necessary and requisite to understand that there are two sorts of Dogs by whose means the feats within specified are wrought and these practises of activity cunningly and curiously compassed by two kindes of Dogs one which rouzeth the beast and continueth the chase another which springeth the bird and bewrayeth the flight by pursute Both which kinds are termed of the Latins by one common name that is Canes Venatici hunting Dogs But because we Englishmen make a difference between hunting and fowling for they are called by these several words Venatio Aucupium so they term the Dogs whom they use in these sundry games by dives names as those which serve for the beast are called Venatici the other which are used for the fowl are called Aucupaâ—orii The first kinde called Venatici I divide into five sorts the first in perfect smelling the second in quick spying the third in swiftness and quickness the fourth in smelling and nimbleness the fifth in subtilty and deceitfulness herein these five sorts excell Of the DOG called a HARIER in Latin Leverarius THat kinde of Dog whom nature hath endued with the virtue of smelling whose property it is to use a lustiness a readiness and a couragiousness in hunting and draweth into his nostrils the air or sent of the beast pursued and followed we call by this word Sagax the Grecians by this word Ichneuten of tracing or chasing by the foot or Rinelaten of the nostrils which be the instruments of smelling We may know these kinde of Dogs by their long large and bagging lips by their hanging ears reaching down both sides of their chaps and by the indifferent and measurable proportion of their making This sort of Dogs we call Leverarios Hariers that I may comprise the whole number of them in certain specialities and apply to them their proper and peculiar names for so much as they cannot all be reduced and brought under one sort considering both the sundry uses of them and the difference of their service whereto they be appointed Some for the Hare the Fox the Wolf the Hart the Buck the Badger the Otter the Polcat the Lobster the Weasell the Cony c. Some for one thing and some for another As for the Cony whom we have lastly set down we use not to hunt but rather to take it some-time with the net sometime with a Ferret and thus every several sort is notable and excellent in his natural quality and appointed practise Among these sundry sorts there be some which are apt to hunt two divers beasts as the Fox other whiles and other whiles the Hare but they hunt not with such towardness and good luck after them as they do that whereunto nature hath formed and framed them not only in external composition and making but also in inward faculties and conditions for they swarve oftentimes and do otherwise then they should Of the DOG called a TERRAR in Latin Terrarius ANother sort there is which hunteth the Fox and the Badger or Gray only whom we cal Terrars because they after the manner and custom of Ferrets in searching for Conies creep into the ground and by that means make afraid nip and bite the Fox and the Badger in such sort that either they tear them in pieces with their teeth being in the bosom of the earth or else hale and pull them perforce out of their lurking Angles darke dungeons and close caves or at the least through conceived fear drive them out of their hollow harbors in so much that they are compelled to prepare speedy flight and being desirous of the next albeit not the safest refuge are otherwise taken and intrapped with snares and nets laid over holes to the same purpose But these be the least in that kinde called Sagaces Of the DOG called a BLOOD-HOVND in Latin Sanguinarius THe greater sort which serve to hunt having lips of a large size and eares of no small length do not only chase the beast whiles it liveth as the other do of whom mention above is made but being dead also by any manner of casualty make recourse to the place where it lyeth having in this point an assured and infallible guide namely the sent and savour of the bloud sprinkled here and there upon the ground For whether the beast being wounded doth notwithstanding enjoy life and escapeth the hands of the huntsman or whether the said beast being slain is conveyed cleanly out of the Park so that there be some signification of bloud shed these Dogs with no lesse facility and easiness then avidity and greediness can disclose and bewray the same by smelling applying to their pursuite agility and nimbleness without tediousness for which consideration of a singular specialty they deserved to be called Sanguinaâ—ii Blood-hounds And albeit
peradventure it may chance as whether it chanceth seldom or sometime I am ignorant that a piece of flesh be subtilly stolne and cunningly conveyed away with such provisoes and precaveats as thereby all appearance of bloud is either prevented excluded or concealed yet these kinde of Dogs by certain direction of an inward assured notice and privie mark pursue the deed-dooers through long lanes crooked reaches and weary wayes without wandering awry out of the limits of the land whereon these desperate purloiners prepared their speedy passage Yea the natures of these Dogs is such and so effectual is their foresight that they can bewray separate and pick them out from among an infinite multitude and an innumerable company creep they never so far into the thickest throng they will finde him out notwithstanding he lie hidden in wilde Woods in close and overgrowen Groves and lurk in hollow holes apt to harbour such ungracious guests Moreover although they should passe over the water thinking thereby to avoid the pursuite of the Hounds yet will not these Dogs give over their attempt but presuming to swim through the stream persevere in their pursuite and when they be arrived and gotten the further banck they hunt up and down to and fro run they from place to place shift they until they have attained to that plot of ground where they passed over And this is their practise if perdy they cannot at the first time smelling finde out the way which the deed-doers took to escape So at length get they that by art cunning and diligent endevour which by fortune and luck they cannot otherwise overcome In so much as it seemeth worthily and wisely written by Aelianus in his 6. Book and 39. Chapter To enthumaticon kai dialecticon to be as it were naturally instilled into these kind of Dogs For they will not pause or breathe forth from their pursuite untill such time as they be apprehended and taken which committed the fact The owners of such Hounds use to keep them in close and dark kennels in the day and let them loose at liberty in the night season to the intent that they might with more courage and boldness practise to follow the fellon in the evening and solitary hours of darkness when such ill disposed varlets are principally purposed to play their impudent pranks These Hounds upon whom this present portion of our treatise runneth when they are to follow such fellowes as we have before rehearsed use not that liberty to range at will which they have otherwise when they are in game except upon necessary occasion whereon dependeth an urgent and effectual perswasion when such purloyners make speedy way in flight but being restrained and drawn back from running at random with the leame the end whereof the owner holding in his hand is led guided and directed with such swiftness and slowness whether he go on foot or whether he ride on horseback as he himself in heart would wish for the more easie apprehension of these venturous varlets In the borders of England and Scotland the often and accustomed stealing of Cattel so procuring these kind of Dogs are very much used and they are taught and trained up first of all to hunt Cattel as well of the smaller as of the greater grouth and afterwards that quality relinquished and left they are learned to pursue such pestilent persons as plant their pleasure in such practises of purloining as we have already declared Of this kind there is none that taketh the Water naturally except it please you so to suppose of them which follow the Otter which sometimes haunt the land and sometime useth the water And yet nevertheless all the kinde of them boyling and broyling with greedy desire of the prey which by swimming passeth through river and flood plunge amids the water and passe the stream with their pawes But this property proceedeth from an earnest desire wherewith they be inflamed rather then from any inclination issuing from the ordinance and appointment of nature And albeit some of this sort in English be called Braobe in Scotish Rache the cause thereof resteth in the she-sex and not in the general kinde For we Englishmen call Bitches belonging to the hunting kind of Dogs by the tearm above mentioned To be short it is proper to the nature of Hounds some to keep silence in hunting untill such cime as there is game offered Other some so soon as they smell out the place where the beast lurketh to bewray it immediately by their importunate barking notwithstanding it be far and many furlongs off cowching close in his cabbin And these Dogs the younger they be the more wantonly bark they and the more liberally yet oftentimes without necessity so that in them by reason of their young years and want of practise small certainty is to be reposed For continuance of time and experience in game ministreth to these Hounds not only cunning in running but also as in the rest an assured foresight what is to be done principally being acquainted with their Masters watchwords either in revoking or imboldening them to serve the game Of the DOG called the GASE-HOUND in Latin Agasaeus THis kinde of Dog which pursueth by the eye prevaileth little or never a whit by any benefit of the nose that is by smelling but excelleth in perspicuity and sharpeness of sight altogether by the virtue whereof being singular and notable it hunteth the Fox and the Hare This Dog will chuse and separate any beast from among a great flock or herd and such a one will it take by election as is not lanck lean and hollow but well spred smooth full fat and round it followes by direction of the eyesight which indeed is clear constant and not uncertain if a beast be wounded and go astray the Dog seeketh after it by the stedfastness of the eye if it chance peradventure to return and be mingled with the residue of the flock this Dog spyeth it out by virtue of his eye leaving the rest of the Cattell untouched and after he hath set sure sight upon it he separateth it from among the company and having so done never ceaseth untill he have wearyed the Beast to death Our Countreymen call this Dog Agasaeum a Gase-hound because the beams of his sight are so stedfastly setled and unmoveably fastned These Dogs are much and usually occupied in the Northern parts of England more then in the Southern parts and in fieldy lands rather then in bushie and woody places horsemen use them more then footmen to the intent that they might provoke their horses to a swift gallop wherewith they are more delighted then with the prey it self and that they might accustome their Horse to leap over hedges and ditches without stop or stumble without harme or hazard without doubt or danger and to escape with safegard of life And to the end that the riders themselves when necessity so constrained and the fear of further mischief inforced might save themselves
the fiery heat of their flesh or rather the pricking thorn or most of all the tickling lust of lechery beareth such swing and sway in them that there is no contrariety for the time but of constraint they must joyn to engender And why should not this be consonant to truth why should not these Beasts breed in this land as well as in other forein Nations For we read that Tygers and Dogs in Hircania that Lyons and Dogs in Arcadia and that Wolves and Dogs in Francia couple and procreate In men and women also lightned with the Lantern of reason but utterly void of vertue that foolish frantick and fleshly action yet naturally seated in us worketh so effectually that many times it doth reconcile enemies set foes at friendship unanimity and atonement as Moria mentioneth The Vrcane which is bred of a Bear and a Dog Is fierce is fell is stout and strong And biteth sore to flesh and bone His furious force indureth long In rage he will be rul'd of none That I may use the words of the Poet Gratius This Dog exceedeth all other in cruel conditions his leering and fleering looks his stern and savage visage maketh him in sight fearful and terrible He is violent in fighting and wheresoever he set his tenterhook teeth he taketh such sure and fast hold that a man may sooner tear and rend him asunder then loose him and separate his chaps He passeth not for the Wolf the Bear the Lyon nor the Bull and may worthily as I think be companion with Alexanders Dog which came out of India But of these thus much and thus far may seem sufficient A start to Out-landish DOGS in this conclusion not impertinent to the Authors purpose USe and custome hath entertained others Dogs of an Out-landish kinde but a few and the same being of a pretty bigness I mean Island Dogs curled and rough all over which by reason of the length of their hair make shew neither of face nor of body And yet these Curs forsooth because they are so strange are greatly set by esteemed taken up and many times in the room of the Spaniel gentle or comforter The nature of men is so moved nay rather maryed to novelties without all reason wit judgement or perseverance Eromen allotrias paroromen suggeneis Out-landish toys we take with delight Things of our own Nation we have in despight Which fault remaineth not in us concerning Dogs only but for Artificers also And why it is manifest that we disdain and contemn our own Work-men be they never so skilful be they never so cunning be they never so excellent A beggerly Beast brought out of barbarous borders from the uttermost Countreys Northward c. we stare at we gaze at we muse we marvail at like an Ass of Cumanum like Thales with the brazen shanks like the man in the Moon The which default Hippocrates marked when he was alive as evidently appeareth in the beginning of his Book Peri Agmon so entituled and named And we in our work entituled De Ephemera Britannica to the people of England have more plentifully expressed In this kinde look which is most blockish and yet most waspish the same is most esteemed and not among Citizens only and jolly Gentlemen but among lusty Lords also and Noblemen Further I am not to wade in the foord of this discourse because it was my purpose to satisfie your expectation with a short treatise most learned Conrade not wearisome for me to write nor tedious for you to peruse Among other things which you have received at my hands heretofore I remember that I wrote a several description of the Getulian Dog because there are but a few of them and therefore very seldom seen As touching Dogs of other kindes you your self have taken earnest pain in writing of them both lively learnedly and largely But because we have drawn this libel more at length then the former which I sent you and yet briefer then the nature of the thing might well bear regarding your most earnest and necessary studies I will conclude making a rehearsal notwithstanding for memory sake of certain specialities contained in the whole body of this my breviary And because you participate principal pleasure in the knowledge of the common and usual names of Dogs as I gather by the course of your letters I suppose it not amiss to deliver unto you a short table containing as well the Latine as the English names and to render a reason of every particular appellation to the intent that no scruple may remain in this point but that every thing may be sifted to the bare bottom A Supplement or Addition containing a demonstration of DOGS Names how they had their Original THe names contained in the general Table forsomuch as they signifie nothing to you being a stranger and ignorant of the English tongue except they be interpreted as we have given a reason before of the Latine words so mean we to do no less of the English that every thing may be manifest unto your understanding Wherein I intend to observe the same order which I have followed before Sagax in English Hund is derived of our English word hunt One letter changed in another namely T into D as Hunt Hund whom if you conjecture to be so named of your Countrey word Hund which signifieth the general name Dog because of the similitude and likeness of the words I will not stand in contradiction friend Gesner for somuch as we retain among us at this day many Dutch words which the Saxons left at such time as they enjoyed this Countrey of Britain Thus much also understand that as in your language Hand is the common word so in our natural tongue Dog is the universal but Hund is particular and a special for it signifieth such a Dog only as serveth to hunt and therefore it is called a Hund. Of the Gase-hound The Gase-hound called in Latine Agasaeus hath his name of the sharpness and stedfastness of his eye-sight By which vertue he compasseth that which otherwise he cannot by smelling attain As we have made former relation for to gase is earnestly to view and behold from whence floweth the derivation of this Dogs name Of the Gray-hound The Gray-hound called Leporarius hath his name of this word Gre which word soundeth Gradus in Latine in English Degree Because among all Dogs these are the most principal having the chiefest place and being simply and absolutely the best of the gentle kinde of Hounds Of the Levyner or the Lyemmer This Dog is called a Levyner for his lightness which in Latine soundeth Levitas Or a Lyemmer which word is borrowed of Lyemme which the Latinists name Lorum and wherefore we call him a Levyner of this word Levitas as we do many things besides why we derive and draw a thousand of our terms out of the Greek the Latine the Italian the Dutch the French and the Spanish tongue Out of which Fountains indeed they had their
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
Herodotus also calleth the Nisean Horses the Medes whereof more shall be spoke afterwards The Menapians amongst our Country-men the only men which I suppose were once call'd French of Caesar and the Rugians as Warriours for the most part are in estimation I also finde that the Rugians inhabited that Countrey which is now called Rugerland and that Paulus Diaconus remembreth them lib. 1. Touching the affairs of Longobardus there are that say they departed into Mechelburgia These are the right off spring of the Germans saith Althametus they are counted as Germans both in language and vertue Gratius writeth of the Marcibians saying the Marcibians scarse yeeld their tough neck to the sword Virgill also declareth Mycenia to be a Countrey of most notable Horses and Gratius commendeth a Horse fit for hunting highly in these verses Consule Penei qualis perfunditur amne Thessalus aut patriae quem conspexere Mycenae Glaucum nempe ingens nempe ardua fundet in aur as Crura quis Eleas potior lustravit arenas Ne tamen hoc attingat opus jactantior illi Virtus quam silvas durumque lacessere Martem The Mysian Horses were once great in estimation as Camerarius writeth Also the Nasamonians are people of Lybia living as spoylers of the ships in the Syrtes Of all these Horses before said the Nisaean Horse is the goodliest and fittest to carry the body of a King they are of a passing good shape an easie pace and very submissive to the bridle having a little head and a long and thick mane with yellow or brown hairs hanging down on both sides Armenia is very fit for feeding Horses wherein is a certain medow called Hippoboans by which they make their journey which pass from Persia and Babylon into the Caspian Border in which place they feed five hundred Mares which belong unto their King The Nisaean Horses written with Jota and simple Sigma as Eustathius writeth are the most excellent and best some say that they have their generation from Germany others out of Armenia but they have a certain kinde of shape like the Parthians In India most of their living creatures are far greater then in other places except Horses for the Nisaean Horses do exceed the Indian Horses as Herodotus writeth in his seaventh Book describeing the Persian Horse Behinde the spears saith be came ten Horses in most sumptuous furniture which were Nisaeans so called because there is a great field named Nisaeus in the Countrey of Media which yeeldeth Horses of a great stature After these followed Jupiters Chariot drawn with eight Horses after which Xerxes was â—aryed in a Chariot drawn by Nisaean Horses and by how much the greater the Lybian Elephant is then the Nisaean Horse so much the greater are the Nisaean Horses then the Indian as the same man saith in his first Book but the King was about to offer a white Horse that is of the Nisaean Horses having a better mark as some expounded There are that say that Nisaeus is a plain of Persis where the most famous and notable Horses are bred Some interpret it to the yellow Nisaean Horse because all the Horses of Nisaean are of this colour Between Susinax and Bactria there is a place which the Greeks call Nisos in which the most singular fine Horses are bred There are also that suppose they are had from the red Sea and all those to be of a yellow colour Herodotus writing of Nisaeus maketh it a part of Media Orpheus also writeth that there is a place in the red Sea called Nisa Stephanus also maketh mention of Nysaean Pedâ—on with the Medes of which people the Horses are so called Coelius Rhodiginus reproved a certain man which translated the Islandish Horses for the Nisaean Horses Plutarch saith that Pyrrbus had an apparition of a Nisaean Horse armed and furnished with a Rider that Alexander the Great was Captain thereof The Medes have Colts of a most noble kinde of Horses which as antient Writers do teach us and as we our selves have seen men when they begin the battel with a fierce encounter are wont to prance valiantly which are called Nisaean Horses Touching the Paphlagonians about the education of their Horses see more among the Venetians The Parthian Horses are of a large body couragious of a gentle kinde and most sound of their feet Concerning those Horses which have but one eye commended among the Parthians and of those which are distinguished by diversity of colours from those that come forth first I have spoke already out of Absyrtus The Armenian and Parthian Horses are of a swifter pace then the Sicilians and the Iberi swffer then the Parthians whereof Gratius writeth to this effect Scilicet Parthis inter sua mollia rura Mansit honor veniat Caudini saxa Taburni Garganumque trucem aut Ligurinas desuper Alpes Ante opus excussis cadet unguibus tamen illi Est animus fingetque meas se nisus in artes Sed juxta vitium posuit Deus That is to say among the Parthians there hath remained honour for their soft Countries but let him come to the Rocks of Caudmus Tabernus and too rough Gargaâ—us or upon the Ligurian Alpes then he will quickly shake off his hoofs and make a shew of great valiantness The Horses of the Celtiberians are somewhat white and if they may be brought into Spain they change their colour But the Parthians are a like for they excel all others in nimbleness and dexterity of running How the Parthians do make their pace easie in the trotters and hard footing Horses after the manner of Geldings shall be declared afterwards for Persia preferreth these Horses above the censure of their patrimonies as well to carry having an easie pace and being of most excellent dignity As for their pace it is thick and short and he doth delight and lift up the Rider being not instructed by art but effecteth it by nature Amongst these ambling Nags called of the Latines among the common sort of Totâ—narii their pace is indifferent and whereas they are not alike they are supposed to have something common from both as it hath been proved whereof Vegetius writeth in this manner In a short journey they have the more comeliness and grace in going but when they travel far they are impatient stubborn and unless they be tamed will be stubborn against the Rider and that which is a more greater marvel when they are chafed they are of a delightful comeliness their neck turneth in manner of a Bow that it seemeth to ly on their breast The Pharsalian Mares evermore bring Foals very like their Syre and therefore very well so named Equae probae We read of the Phasian Horses which receive their name from the mark or brand of a bird so named or else because of their excellent beauty and comeliness The Rosean Horses Varro so nameth of Rosea which Volatteranus writeth to be most fit for War and this Rosea otherwise Roscea Festus saith
made some to allay griefs and sharpness of humors some to binde some to loosen some to purge evill humors some to cleanse Ulcers but our Farriers use Glysters only to loosen the belly and for no other purpose yea few or none do that unlesse it be Martin and such as he hath taught who is not ignorant that a Glyster is the beginning of purgation For a Glyster by cleansing the guts refresheth the vital parts and prepareth the way before And therefore whensoever a Horse is surfeited and full of evill humors needing to be purged and specially being pained in the guts I would wish you to begin first with a Glyster lest by purging him by medicine upon the sudden you stir up a multitude of evill humors which finding no passage downward because the guts be stopt with winde and dregges do strike upwards and so perhaps put the Horse in great danger But now you shall understand that Glysters be made of four things that is to say of Decoctions of Drugs of Oyls or such like unctious matters as Butter and soft grease and fourthly of divers kindes of Salt to provoke the virtue expulsive A Decoction is as much to say as the broth of certain hearbs or simples boyled together in water till the third part be consumed And sometime in stead of such Decoction it shall be needful perhaps to use some fat broth as the broth of Beef or of Sheeps heads or Milk or Whay or some other such like liquor and that perhaps mingled with Hony or Sugar according as the disease shall require the Glyster to be either Lenitive that is to say easing pain or Glutinative that is joyning together or else Abstersive that is to say cleansing or wiping away filthy matter of which Decoction of broth being strained you shall need to take three pintes or a quart at the least And then into that you may put such drugs as shall be needful to the weight of three or four ounces according as the simples shall be more or lesse violent Of Oyl at the least half a pinte and of Salt two or three drams and then to be ministred luke-warm with a horn or pipe made of purpose when the Horse is not altogether full panched but rather empty be it either in fore-noon or after-noon And as touching the time of keeping Glysters in the body you shal understand that to Glysters abstersive half an hour or lesse may suffice to Glysters Lenitive a longer time if it may be and to Glysters Glutinative the longest time of all 〈◊〉 most needful Of Purgations PUrgations for Men may be made in divers sorts and forms but Horses are wont to be purged only with pils or else with purging powders put into Ale Wine or some other liquor But the simples whereof such pils or powders be made would be chosen with judgement and aptly applyed so as you may purge away the hurtful humors and not the good Learn first therefore to know with what humor or humors the Horse is grieved be it Choler Flegm or Melancholy and in what part of the body such humors do abound then what simples are best to purge such humors and with what property quality and temperament they be indued For some be violent and next cousins to poyâ—on as Scammony or Coloquintida Some again are gentle and rather meat than medicines as Monna Cassia Whay Prunes and such like And some again be neither too violent nor too gentle but in a mean as Rhubarb Agarick Sene Aloes The old men did use much to purge Horses with the pulp of Coloquintida and sometime with the roots of wilde Cowcumber and some-time with the broath of a sodden Whelp mingled with Nitrum and divers other things whereof I am sure I have made mention before in the curing of Horses diseases Notwithstanding I would not wish you to be rash in purging a Horse after the old mens example For as their simples many times be very violent so the quantities thereof by them prescribed are very much and dangerous for any Horse to take in these days in the which neither man nor beast as it seemeth is of such force or strength as they were in times past And therefore whensoever you would purge him with such like kindes of Purgations as Martin useth whereof you have example before in divers places and whensoever you list for knowledge sake to deal with other simples to prove them first upon such Jades as may well be spared For whosoever mindeth to purge a Horse well that is to do him good and no hurt had need to consider many things as the nature of the Horses disease and the Horses strength also the nature strength and quantity of the medicine that he ministreth the Region or Countrey the time of the disease the time of the year and day For as the diseases and evil humors causing such diseases are divers so do they require to be purged with divers medicines diversly compounded wherein consisteth a point of Art to be learned at the Physitians hands and not at mine Again weak delicate and tender Horses may not be purged in such sort as those that be of a strong sturdy nature And therefore in such cases the quality and quantity of the simples is not a little to be considered neither is the hotness or coldness of the Region to be neglected nor the time of the disease For some require to be purged in the very beginning some not until the matter be throughly digested and though the disease proceed perhaps of cold and cold humors yet a man may not minister such hot things in Summer as he would do in Winter nor in the contrary case such cold things in Winter as he would in Summer And therefore the time and season of the year is also to be observed yea the day and time of the day For the more temperate the day is the better not in an extreme hot day for making the Horse to faint nor yet when the winde bloweth in the cold North for that will stop and hinder the working of the medicine but rather in a temperate moist day when the winde is in the South if it may be for that will further and help the working of the medicine and make the body loose and soluble Again for a Horse whether you purge him with pils or drink it is best for him as Martin saith to take them in the morning after that he hath fasted from meat and drink all the night before And having received his medicine let him be walked up and down one hour at the least and then set him up and suffered to stand on the bit two or three hours without any meat but in the mean time see that he be well littered and warm covered and at three hours end offer him a little of a warm mash made with Wheat-meal or with Bran or else with ground mault Give him little meat or none until he be purged all which things have been
of the party so grieved The dust of a Horse hoof anointed with Oyl and Water doth drive away impollumes and little bunches which rise in the flesh in what part of the body soever they beâ— and the dust of the hoof of an Asse anointed with Oyl Water and hot urine doth utterly expell all Wens and kernels which do rise in the neck arme-holes or any other part of the body of either man or woman The genital of a gelded Horse dryed in an Oven beaten to powder and given twice or thrice in a little hot broth to drink unto the party grieved is by Pliny accounted an excellent and approved remedy for the seconds of a woman The soam of a Horse or the dust of a Horse hoof dryed is very good to drive away shamefastness being anointed with a certain titulation The scrapings of the Horses hoofs being put in wine and poured into the Horses nostris do greatly provoke his urine The ashes also of an Horses hoof being mingled with wine and water doth greatly ease and help the disease called the Colick or Stone as also by a perfume which may be made by the hoofs of Horses being dryed a childe which is still born is cast out The milk of Mares is of such an excellent virtue that it doth quite expell the poison of the Sâ—ahare and all other poison whatsoever drink also mingled with Mares milk doth make the body loose and laxable It is also counted an excellent remedy against the falling sickness 〈◊〉 drink the stones of a Boar out of a Mares milk or water If there be any filth or m 〈…〉 ying in the matrice of a woman let her take Mares milk boiled and througly strained and presently the 〈◊〉 and excrements will void clean away If so he that a Woman be barren and cannot conceive leb her then take Mares milk not knowing what it is and let her presently accompany with a man and she will conceive The milk of a Mare being drunk doth asswage the labor of the matrice and doth cause a still childe to be cast forth If the seed of Henbane be beaten small and mingled with Mares milk and bound with a Harts skin so that it may not touch the ground and fastened or bound to a woman they will hinder her conception The thinnest or latest part of the milk of a Mare doth very easily gently and without any daâ—ger purge the belly Mares milk being dayly anointed with a little Hony doth without any pain or punishment take away the wounds of the eyes being new made Cheese made of Mares milk doth represse and take away all wringings or aches in the belly whatsoever If you â—â—dint a co 〈…〉 wâ—th the foam of a Horse wherewith 〈◊〉 young man or youth doth use to comb his head it is of 〈…〉 as it will cause the hair of his head heither to encrease or any whit to appear The 〈…〉 a Horse is also very much commended for them which have either pain or difficulty of hearing in their ears or else the dust of Horse dung being new made and dryed and mingled with Oyl of Roses The grief or soreness of a mans mouth or throat being washed or anointed with the foam of a Horse which hath been sed with Oates or Barly doth presently expell the pain of the foreness if so be that it be two or three times washed over with the juyce of young or green Sea-crabs beaten small together but if you cannot get the Sea-crabs which are green sprinkle upon the grief the small powder which doth come from dryed Crabs which are baked in an Oven made of Brasse and afterward wash the mouth where the pain is and you shall finde present remedy The foam of a Horse being three or four times taken in drink doth quite expell and drive away the Cough But Marcellus doth affirm that whosoever is troubled with the Cough or consumption of the lungs and doth drink the foam of a Horse by it self alone without any drink shall finde present help and remedy but as Sextus saith the Horse will presently die after it The same also being mingled with hot water and given to one who is troubled with the â—ame diseases being in manner past all cure doth presently procure health but the death of the Horse doth instantly ensue The sweat of a Horse being mingled with Wine and so drunk doth cause a woman which it very big and in great labor to cast a still childe The sweat of any Beast but as Albertus saith only of a Horse doth breed wind in a man or womans face being put thereupon and besides that doth bring the Squince or Squincy as also a filthy stinking sweat If Swords Knives or the points of Spears when they are red fire hot be anointed with the sweat of a Horse they will be so venemous and full of poyson that if a man or woman be smitten or pricked therewith they will never cease from bleeding as long as life doth last If a Horse be wounded with an Arrow and have the sweat of another Horse and bread which hath been brent being mingled in mans urine given him to drink and afterwards some of the same being mingled with Horse grease put into the wound it will in short time procure him ease and help There are some which will assure us that if a man be troubled with the belly worms or have a Serpent crept into his belly if he take but the sweat of a Horse being mingled with his urine and drink it it will presently cause the Worms or the Serpent to issue forth The dung of a Horse or Asse which is fed with grasse being dryed and afterward dipped in wine and so drunk is a very good remedy against the bitings and blowes of Scorpions The same medicines they do also use being mingled with the genital of a Hare in Vinegar both against the Scorpion and against the Shrew-mouse The force is so great in the poyson of a mad Dog or Bitch that his pargeted Urine doth much hurt especially unto them that have a â—ore boil upon them the chiefest remedy therefore against the same is the dung of a Horse mingled with Vinegar and being warmed put into the scab or sore The dung as well of Asses as of Horses either raw cold or burned is excellent good against the breaking forth or issues of the bloud The dung of Horses or Asses being new made or warm and so clapped and put to a green wound doth very easily and speedily stanch the bleeding If the vein of a Horse be cut and the bloud do issue out in too much aboundance apply the dung of the same Horse unto the place where the vein is cut and the bleeding will presently cease wherefore the Poet doth very well express it iâ— these Verses following Sive fimus manni cum testis uritur ovi Et reprimit fluâ—dos miro 〈…〉 The same
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
men hunt and seek 〈…〉 em Of the MOUSE PONTIQVE THe name of this Mouse is given unto it from the Island out of which it was first brought named Pontus and for this cause it is also called Venetus because it was first of all brought into Germany from Venice It is called also Varius by Idorus from whence cometh the German word Vutrck from the diversity of the colour Grauvuerck It is called also Pundtmuss as it were Ponticusmus or rather of Bundi because they were wont to be brought in bundles to be sold fifty together and they were sold for twenty groats Volaterranus and Hermolaus are of this opinion that the white one in this kinde be called of the Italians Armelline and the Germans Hermelin but we have promised already to prove that Hermelin is a kinde of Weesil which in the Winter time is white by reason of extremity of cold and in the Summer returneth into her colour again like as do the Hares of the Alpes This Pontique Mouse differeth from others only in colour for the white is mingled with ash colour or else it is sandy and black and in Polonia at this day they are found red and ash coloured Their two lowermost teeth before are very long and when it goeth it draweth the tail after it like Mice when it eateth it useth the fore-feet in stead of hands and feedeth upon Walnuts Chesnuts Filbeards small Nuts Apples and such like fruits In the Winter time they take sleep in stead of meat And it is to be remembred that the Polonians have four kindes of pretious skins of Mice which they use in their garments distinguished by four several names The first of grisel colour called Popieliza The second is called Gronosthaii a very white Beast all over except the tip of the tail which is all black and this is the Hermelin The third is called Novogrodela from the name of a Town and this is white mingled with grisel and this is also a kinde of Pontique Mouse The fourth Vvieuvorka of a bright Chesnut colour and this is the Squirrel for they call Squirrels Weesils and Hermelins all by the name of Mice These Pontique Mice have teeth on both sides and chew the cud In the Winter time as we have said they lie and sleep especially the white ones and their sense of taste doth excel all other as Pliny writeth they build their nests and breed like common Squirrels Their skins are sold by ten together the two best are called Litzschna the third a little worse are called Crasna and the fourth next to them Pocrasna and the last and vilest of all Moloischna with these skins they hem and edge garments and in some places they make Canonical garments of them for Priests unto which they sew their tails to hang down on the skirts of their garments of which custom Hermolaus writeth very excellently in these words Instruxit ex muribus luxuriam suam vita alios magnis frigoribus alios medio anni tempore a septentrionibus petendo armamus corpora debellamus animos That is to say The life of man hath learned to be prodigal even out of the skins of Mice for some they use against extremity of cold and they fetch others out of the farthest Northern parts for the middle part of the year Thus do we arm and adorn our bodies but put down and spoil our mindes I send unto thee a little skin the upper place of the hairs thereof being of a white ash colour but the root of the hair or inner part thereof is a black brown They call it Popyelycza Lataacza that is a Pontique flying Mouse It is always so moist that it can never be dressed by the Skinner or Lether-dresser The people use it to wipe sore running eyes having a perswasion that there is in it a singular vertue for the easing and mitigating of those pains but I think that the softness was the first cause which brought in the first use thereof but if the hairs do not cleave hard to the skin it cannot be done without danger Also the hairs hanging as it were in a round circle against or above the two former feet they call wings wherewithal they are thought to flie from tree to tree Thus far Antonius Gesner after the receit of these skins being willing to preserve them from moths because they were raw for experience sake gave them to a leather dresser who presently dressed them with Vinegar and the Lees of Wine so that it appeareth the Skinners of Lituania had not the skill how to dress it After they were dressed they were so soft that they stretched above measure so that every one of them were square that is to say their length and breadth were equal for they were two palms or eight fingers broad and no more in length the head and tail excepted wherefore it may well be called a square Mouse or Sciurus quadratus because we are sure of the former but not of the flying the tail was as long as four or five fingers are broad being rough like the tail of other Squirrels but beset with black and white hairs the whole colour both of the belly and upper part was whitish as we have said but black underneath the hair is so soft as any silk and therefore fit for the use of the eyes The ears shorter and rounder then a Squirrels the feet did not appear by the skin the neather part was distinguished from the upper part by a certain visible line wherein did hang certain long hairs which by their roughness and solidity under the thin and broad frame of their body might much help them to flie even as broad fishes swim by the breadth of their bodies rather then by the help of their fins The Helvetians wear these skins in their garments It is reported by Aelianus that the Inhabitants of Pontus by making supplication to their Gods did avert and turn away the rage of Mice from their Corn-fields as the Egyptians did as we have said before in the story of the vulgar Mouse Of the Mouse called the Shrew or the Erd shrew THe word Hanaka of the Hebrews remembred in the 11. chapter of Leviticus is diversly interpreted by the translators some call it a reptile beast which always cryeth some a reptile flying beast some a Horse-leach or bloud-sucker some a Hedgehog and some a Beaver as we have shewed before in the Hedgehog But the Septuagints translate it Mygale and S. Jerom Mus araneus that is a Shrew Dioscorides calleth it Miogale the Germans and Helvetians call it Mutzer in some parts of Germany from the figure of the snowt it is called Spitzmus by some Zissmuss from the fiction of his voice and some Gross Zissmuss the Hollanders call it Moll Musse because it resembleth a Mole Mathaolus for the Italians call it Toporagno that is a Mole-shrew The Helvetians call it Bisem-muss that is a Musk-mouse because it being dryed in a furnace smelleth like
they turn them down upon them sodainly who take them and destroy them yet such is the nature of this Beast as also of the Pardal that if he doe not take his prey at the fourth or fift jump he falleth so angry and fierce that he destroyeth whomsoever he meeteth yea many times his Hunter Therefore the Hunters have always a regard to carry with them a Lamb or a Kid or some such live thing wherewithal they pacific him after he hath missed his game for without bloud he will never be appeaâ—ed and thus much shall suffice to have spoken of the difference betwixt Panthers Pardals and Leopards and their several names in Greek and Latine from whom almost all Nations do derive their denomination for the Italians call it Leonpardo the French Leopard and Lyopard and Germans Leppard and Lefarad and Pantherthier the Spaniards Leonpardal and Leopardo the Illyrians Leuhart the Chaldeans Nimra and some make no difference betwixt this and the Arabian Wolf The reason of the Greek word Pardalis or Pordalis for they signifie both one seemeth to me in most probability to be derived from the Hebrew word Pardes signifying a Garden because as colours in a Garden make it spotted and render a fragrant smell so the Panther is divers coloured like a Garden of sundry flowers and also it is said to carry with him a most sweet savour whither soever he goeth and therefore in ancient time they made their Ivory tables standing upon pictures of Panthers whereof Juvenal writeth thus in one of his Satyres Olim ex quavis â—rbore mensa fieâ—at At nunâ— divitbus c 〈…〉 ndi nulla voluptas nisi sustinet orbes Grande 〈◊〉 magne sublimis Pardus â—iatu Dentibus ex illis quos mit 〈…〉 porta Syenes Jam nimiâ—s capitique graves c. For the same cause Pardalis was the name of a notable Harlot for as the Panthers by their sweet smells draw the Beasts unto them and then destroy them so also do Harlots deck and adorn themselves with all alluring provocations as it were with inchanted odours to draw men unto them of whom they make spoil and repine There is a pretious stone also called Lapis Pantherus brought out of India whereupon if a man look before the Sun-rising he shall see divers colours namely black red green russet purple and Rose colour and they say it hath as many vertues as it hath colours but I list not to follow the name any further The Countries breeding Panthers are Abasia in the Kingdom of Melacha in the Isle of Sumatra Likewise 〈…〉 especially Syria for there are none in Europe all Africk over they are plentiful as in Lybia and Mauritania where abound all store of wilde Beasts Likewise beyond G 〈…〉 pâ— for Apollonius and his companions saw there many Lions and Panthers In Arabiâ— the furthest part namely the Promontory of Dyra towards the South are the strongest Pardals of the world as saith Strabâ—â— Likewise in the Mediterranean Region beyond Barygaza toward the South unto Dachinabades and towards the East are all sorts of wilde Beasts both Tygers and Panthers and Diodorus writeth that in that part of Arabia joyning upon Syria there Lions and Pardals are both more in number and greater in quantity then in Lybia Also it is said by Volaterranus and Gillius that the Panther of Lycia and Caria are very long but yet weak and without carriage being not able to leap far yet is their skin so hard as no Iron can pierce Betwixt the River Ganges and Hiphasis Apollonius saw many Panthers The Indians also breed many and make them tame and Leopards do live in the Woods of Barbaria It is apparent by that which is already said that the Panther is the name of the greater Pardal and the Leopard of the lesser which the Arabians call Alne 〈…〉 and Alfbead Al 〈…〉 r is bigger then a Linx but like a Leopard having greater and sharper nails and feet black and terrible eyes and therefore stronger fiercer and bolder then the Leopard for it setteth upon men and destroyeth them Oppianus describeth both kindes in this manner There are saith he two kindes of Pardals a greater and a lesser the greater are broader backe and bigger in quantity the lesser being less in quantity but not inferior in strength both of them have the same shape and colour of body except in their tail for the greater Pardal hath the lesser tail and the lesser the greater either of them have solid and found thighs a very long body bright seeing eyes the apples whereof do glister under their eye-lids which are gray and red within like to burning coals their teeth pale and venemous their skin of divers colours yet bright and pleasant the spots standing like so many black eyes upon it thus fat Oppianus Such skins are oftentimes sold in the Marts of Europe which are brought in bundles twenty or thirty together and it is not to be forgotten which Voleterran citeth out of Aelianus that there is in this kinde of Pardals a Beast called Bitis not unlike to the vulgar Leopards in all parts except that is wanteth a tail and they say that if this Beast be seen by a woman it will instantly make her to be sick but to proceed to the residue of the parts of these Beasts we must remember that which Aristole writeth in his Physiognomy as is recorded by Ada 〈◊〉 Leopersectis sim 〈…〉 〈◊〉 ideam prae se sert Pardalis vero 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 exceptis quibus ad invadendum fortiter utitur that is to say Among all Beasts the Lion doth most resemble the male and the Pardal the female except in the legs which she useth to take her prey In hath a little face a little mâ—nth little 〈◊〉 somewhat white plain and not much hollow along fore-head ears rather round then smooth or broad a neck very long and slender the breast not well set out with ribs because they are small the back long the buttocks and thighs very fleshy the parts about the small of the belly or lâ—ins are more smooth less hollow and bunchy the colour divers and the whole body 〈◊〉 and not well compounded for the outward sight and it is to be remembered saith Gard 〈…〉 that all ravening Beasts like a Cat as Lions Panthers Linces and Pardals for they have in common the length and strength of their claws beautiful party coloured skins a little head and round face a long tail nimbleness of body and wildeness of 〈◊〉 living upon the meat they get in hunting The Persians call a Pardal 〈◊〉 and Soaliger describeth it thus In his red or yellow hair he is like a Lioness but set with divers black spots both in length and breadth as if they were paâ—â—ted It hath a brown face aspersed with black and white and it is to be remembered that as other Beasts are either all black or all red or all white or all of one colour by nature so also
banquet Among the Chaonians there was a certain young Nobleman which loved a Virgin called Anthippe the which two lovers were walking together a good season in a Wood It happened while they were there that Cichyrus the Kings Son prosecuted a Pardal in hunting which was fled into that Wood and seeing him bent his arm against him and cast his Dart the which Dart missed the mark and killed the Virgin Anthippe the young Prince thought that he had slain the beast and therefore drew neer on Horse-back to rejoyce over the fall of the game according to the manner of Hunters but at his approach he found it far otherwise for in stead of the effusion of the bloud of a beast that which was more lamentable his right hand had shed the bloud of a Virgin For when he came to them he saw her dying and drawing her last breath and the young man held his hand in the wound to stanch the bloud for sorrow whereof he presently fell distracted in his minde and ran his Horse to the top of a sharp Rock from whence he cast down himself headlong and so perished The Chaonians after they understood this fearful accident and the reason of it compassed in the place where he fell with a wall and for the honour of their dead Prince builded a City where he lost his life and called it Cichyrus after his own name Leopards and Panthers do also love Wine above all other drink and for this cause both Bacchus was resembled to them and they dedicated to him Bacchum tauro assimilant Pardali quod homines â—brii belluarum istarum ingenia referant omnia violenter agant quidam enim iracundi fiunt Taurorum instar puâ—naces ferique ut Pardales saith Plato in his second Book of laws they resemble and compare Bacchus to a Bull or Pardal because drunken men in all their actions do imitate the disposition of these wilde beasts both in their folly and violence For some of them are wrathful like Bulls and some of them wilde apt to fight like Pardals Bacchus was also called Nebrides because he wore the skin of a Hinde-calf which is spotted almost like a Panther and therefore a fearful man or a drunken variable and inconstant man is said to wear a skin of divers colours but the chief cause why Panthers were dedicated to Bacchus was for their love of Wine for all Writers do constantly and with one consent affirm that they drink Wine unto drunkenness the manner and end thereof is elegantly described by Oppianus in this sort When the Inhabitants of Lybia do observe some little fountain arising out of the sand and falling down again as in the manner of small Springs which cannot encrease into great Rivers whereat the Panthers and Pardals use to drink early in a morning before it be light after they have been at their prey in the night time the Hunters come and pour twenty or thirty pitchers of old sweet Wine into the said Fountain then a little way from it they lie down and cover themselves with clothes or with straw for there is no shelter either of tree or bushes in that Countrey In the morning the Panthers ardently thirsting and being almost dead for want of drink come unto the same fountain and tasting of the Wine drink thereof great aboundance which presently falleth to work upon their brains for they begin first of all to leap and sport themselves until they be well wearyed and then they lie down and sleep most soundly at which time the Hunters that lye in wait for them come and take them without all fear or perill Thus far Oppianus Concerning the use of their several parts I finde little among the ancients except of their skin for the foot-men and ancient Souldiers of the Moores did not only wear them for garments but also slept upon them in the night time The Shepheards of Aethiopia called Agriophagi do eat the flesh of Lions and Panthers although it be hot and dry The Medicines of the Panther or Leopard If the skin or hide of a Leopard being taken and flead be covered or laid upon the ground there is such force and vertue in the same that any venemous or poysonsome Serpents dare not approach into the same place where it is so laid The flesh of a Panther being roasted or boiled at the fire and smelled by any one which is troubled with the Palsie or shaking in the joynts as also by them which are troubled with the beating and continual moving or turning of the heart is a very profitable and excellent remedy for the same The same fat or sewet of a Leopard being mixed or mingled with the Oyl which proceedeth from the Bay-tree and then mollified both together and so anointed upon any one which is troubled with the scurse or mangy the scabs whereof doth cut or pierce the skin doth presently and without any grief or pain cure the same The twigs of a Vine-tree being dryed and beaten into small dust or powder and mingled together with the fat or grease of a Leopard and so anointed upon the face of any one who is grieved with akings and swelling thereon will not only cure and heal the same without any pain or sorrow but also preserve the same free from blemishes in the time of healing The grease also of a Leopard by it self being anointed upon the head of any one who doth shed or cast his hair or is troubled with the Foxes evill doth immediately help and cure the same The bloud of a Panther being anointed upon the veins or sinews of either man or woman who is grieved with any swelling or akings therein is very profitable and curable to expel the same away The brains of a Leopard being mingled with a little quantity of the water which is called a Canker and with a little Jasmine and so mixed together and then drunk doth mitigate the pain or ach of the belly The brains of the same beast being mixed with the juyce of a Canker and anointed upon the genital of any man doth incitate and stir him up to lechery but the marrow which cometh from this beast being drunk in Wine doth ease the pain or wringing of the guts and the belly The gall of a Panther being received into the body either in meat or drink doth instantly and out of hand kill or poyson him which doth so receive it The right stone of a Leopard being taken of a woman of a far spent age doth restore unto her her menstrual purgation being ceased and doth make her to purge if she doth heartily receive her meat more often Of the POEPHAGUS THere is a beast in India called Poephagus because he feedeth upon herbs and grass like a Horse whose quantity he doth exceed double for he is twice so big his tail is most thick and black the hairs whereof are thinner then the hairs of a mans head and therefore Indian women make
by taking of Swines dung mixed and made soft like morter with the urine of a man layed unto the root it is recovered and the Wormes driven away and if there be any rents or stripes visible upon trees so as they are endangered to be lost thereby they are cured by applying unto the stripes and wounds this dung of Swine When the Apple trees are loose pour upon their roots the stale of Swine and it shall establish and settle them and wheresoever there are Swine kept there it is not good to keep or lodge Horses for their smell breath and voice is hateful to all magnanimous and perfect spirited Horses And thus much in this place concerning the use of the several parts of Swine whereunto I may add our English experiments that if Swine be suffered to come into Orchards and dig up and about the roots of the Apple trees keeping the ground bare under them and open with their noses the benefit that will arise thereby to your increase of fruit will be very inestimable And here to save my self of a labor about our English Hogs I will describe their usage out of Mr. Tussers husbandry in his own words as followeth and first of all for their breeding in the Spring of the year he writeth in general Let Lent will kept offend not thee For March and April breeders be And of September he writeth thus To gather some mast it shall stand thee upon With servant and children yer mast be all gone Some left among bushes shall pleasure thy Swine For fear of a mischief keep Acornes fro kine For roâ—ting of pasture ring Hog ye have need Which being well ringled the better doth feed Though young with their elders will lightly keep best Yet spare not to ringle both great and the rest Yoke seldome thy swine while shacke time doth last For divers misfortunes that happen too fast Or if you do fancy whole eare of the Hog Give ear to ill neighbor and ear to his Dog Keep hog I advise thee from medow and Corne For out alowd crying that ere he was borne Such lawlesse so haunting both often and long If dog set him chaunting he doth thee no wrong And again in Octobers husbandry he writeth Though plenty of Acornes the Porkelings to fat Not taken in season may perish by that If ratling or swelling get once in the throat Thou losest thy porkling a Crown to a Groat What ever thing fat is again if it fall Thou venterest the thing and the fatnesse withall The fatter the better to sell or to kill But not to continue make proof if you will In November he writeth again Let Hog once sat lose none of that When mast is gone Hog falleth anon Still fat up some till Shrovetide come Now Porke and sowce bears tacke in a house Thus far of our English husbandry about Swine Now followeth their diseases in particular Of the diseases of Swine HEmlock is the bane of Panthers Swine Wolves and all other beasts that live upon devouring of flesh for the Hunters mix it with flesh and so spread or cast the flesh so poysoned abroad in bits or morsels to be devoured by them The root of the white Chamelion mixed with fryed Barly flour Water and oyl is also poyson to Swine The black Ellebor worketh the same effect upon Horses Oxen and Swine and therefore when the beasts do eat the white they forbear the black with all wearisomeness Likewise Henbane worketh many painful convulsions in their bellies therefore when they perceive that they have eaten thereof they run to the waters and gather Snails or Sea-crabs by vertue whereof they escape death and are again restored to their health The hearb Goosefoot is venemous to Swine and also to Bees and therefore they will never light upon it or touch it The black Night-shade is present destruction unto them and they abstain from Harts tongue and the great bur by some certain instinct of nature If they be bitten by any Serpents Sea-crabs or Snails are the most present remedy that nature hath taught them The Swine of Scythia by the relation of Pliny and Aristotle are not hurt with any poyson except Scorpions and therefore so soon as ever they are stung by a Scorpion they die if they drink And thus much for the poyson of Swine Against the cold of which these beasts are most impatient the best remedy is to make them warm sties for if it be once taken it will cleave faster to them then any good thing and the nature of this beast is never to eat if once he feel himself sick and therefore the diligent Master or keeper of Swine must vigilantly regard the beginnings of their diseases which cannot be more evidently demonstrated then by forbearing of their meat Of the Measels THe Measels are called in Greek Chalaza in Latin Grandines for that they are like hailstones spred in the flesh and especially in the leaner part of a Hog and this disease as Aristotle writeth is proper to this Beast for no other in the world is troubled therewith for this cause the Grecians call a Measily Hog Chaluros and it maketh their flesh very loose and soft The Germans call this disease Finnen and Pfinnen the Italians Gremme the French Sursume because the spots appear at the root of the tongue like white seeds and therefore it is usuall in the buying of Hogs in all Nations to pull out their tongue and look for the Measels for if there appear but one upon his tongue it is certain that all the whole body is infected And yet the Butchers do all affirm that the cleanest hog of all hath three of these but they never hurt the swine or his flesh and the Swine may be full of them and yet none appear upon his tongue but then his voice will be altered and not be was wont These abound most of all in such Hogs as have fleshy legs and shoulders very moist and if they be not over plentiful they make the flesh the sweeter but if they abound it tasteth like stock-fish or meat over-watered If there be no appearance of these upon their tongue then the chap-man or buyer pulleth off a bristle from the back and if bloud follow it is certain that the beast is infected and also such cannot well stand upon their hinder legs Their tail is very round For remedy hereof divers days before their killing they put into their wash or swill some ashes especially of Hasel trees But in France and Germany it is not lawful to sell such a Hog and therefore the poor people do only eat them Howbeit they cannot but engender evill humors and naughty bloud in the body The roots of the bramble called Ramme beaten to powder and cast into the holes where Swine use to bath themselves do keep them clear from many of these diseases and for this cause also in antient time they gave them Horse-flesh sodden and Toads sodden in water to drink the
the third kinde of the Unicorn and I trust that there is no wise man that will be offended at it for as we have shewed already in many stories that sundry Beasts have not only their divisions but sub-divisions into sub-alternal kindes as many Dogs many Deer many Horses many Mice many Panthers and such like why should there not also be many Unicorns And if the Reader be not pleased with this let him either shew me better reason which I know he shall never be able to do or else be silent lest the uttering of his dislike bewray envy and ignorance Now although the parts of the Unicorn be in some measure described and also their Countries namely India and Aethiopia yet for as much as all is not said as may be said I will add the residue in this place And first of all there are two Kingdoms in India one called Niem and the other Lamber or Lambri both these are stored with Unicorns And Aloisius Cadamustus in his fifty Chapter of his Book of Navigation writeth that there is a certain Region of the New-found World wherein are found live Unicorns and toward the East and South under the Equinoctial there is a living creature with one horn which is crooked and not great having the head of a Dragon and a beard upon his chin his neck long and stretched out like a Serpents the residue of his body like to a Harts saving that his feet colour and mouth are like a Lions and this also if not a fable or rather a Monster may be a fourth kinde of Unicorn and concerning the horns of Unicorns now we must perform our promise which is to relate the true history of them as it is found in the best Writers This therefore growing out of the fore-head betwixt the eye-lids is neither light nor hollow nor yet smooth like other horns but hard as Iron rough as any file revolved into many plights sharper than any dart straight and not crooked and every where black except at the point There are two of these at Venice in the Treasury of S. Marks Church as Brasavolus writeth one at Argentarat which is wreathed about with divers Spires There are also two in the Treasury of the King of Polonia all of them as long as a man in his stature In the year 1520 there was found the horn of a Unicorn in the River Aâ—rula near Bruga in Helvetia the upper face or outside whereof was a dark yellow it was two cubits in length but had upon it no plights or wreathings It was very odoriferous especially when any part of it was set on â—iee so that it smelled like musk assoon as it was found it was carryed to a Nunnery called Campus regius but afterwards by the Governor of Helvetia it was recovered back again because it was found within his territory Now the vertues of this horn are already recited before and yet I will for the better justifying of that which I have said concerning the Unicorns horn add the testimony of our learned men which did write thereof to Gesner whose letters according as I finde them recorded in his work so I have here inserted and translated word for word And first of all the answer of Nicholas Gerbelius unto his Epistle concerning the Unicorns horn at Argentoratum is this which followeth for saith he The horn which those Noblemen have in the secrets of the great Temple I have often seen and handled with my hands It is of the length of a tall man if so be that you shall thereunto add the point thereof for there was a certain evil disposed person amongst them who had learned I know not of whom that the point or top of the same horn would be a present remedy both against all poyson and also against the Plague or Pestilence Wherefore that sacrilegious thief plucked off the higher part or top from the residue being in length three or four fingers For which wicked offence both he himself was cast out of that company and not any ever afterwards of that family might be received into this society by an Ordinance gravely and maturely ratified This pulling off the top brought a notable deformity to that most splendant gift The whole horn from that which sticketh to the fore-head of this beast even unto the top of the horn is altogether firm or solid not gaping with chops chinks or crevises with a little greater thickness then a tile is usually amongst us For I have oftentimes comprehended almost the whole horn in my right hand From the root unto the point it is even as wax candles are rowled together most elegantly severed and raised up in little lines The weight of this horn is of so great a massiness that a man would hardly believe it and it hath been often wondred at that a beast of so little a stature could bear so heavy and weighty a burden I could never smell any sweetness at all therein The colour thereof is like unto old Ivory in the midst betwixt white and yellow But you shall never have a better pattern of this then where it is sold in little pieces or fragments by the Oylmen For the colour of our horn is life unto them But by whom this was given unto that same Temple I am altogether ignorant Another certain friend of mine being a man worthy to be believed declared unto me that he saw at Paris with the Chancellor being Lord of Pratus a piece of a Unicorns horn to the quantity of a cubit wreathed in tops or spires about the thickness of an indifferent staffe the compass thereof extending to the quantity of six fingers being within and without of a muddy colour with a solid Iubstance the fragments whereof would boil in the Wine although they were never burned having very little or no smell at all therein When Joannes Ferrerius of Piemont had read these things he wrote unto me that in the Temple of Dennis near unto Paris there was a Unicorns horn six foot long wherein all those things which are written by Gerbelius in our Chronicles were verified both the weight and the colour but that in bigness it exceeded the horn at the City of Argentorate being also hollow almost a foot from that part which sticketh unto the fore-head of the Beast this he saw himself in the Temple of S. Dennis and handled the horn with his hands as long as he would I hear that in the former year which was from the year of our Lord 1553. when Vercella was overthrown by the French there was brought from that treasure unto the King of France a very great Unicorns horn the price whereof was valued at fourscore thousand Duckets Paulus Poaeius describeth an Unicorn in this manner That he is a Beast in shape much like a young Horse of a dusty colour with a maned neck a hairy beard and a fore-head armed with a horn of the quantity of two cubits being separated with
more to be doubted in the kinde of Unicorns for the horns of Harts are not only solid as Aristole supposed but also the horns of Unicorns as here I have said The horn of an Unicorn is at this day used although age or longinquity of time hath quite abolished it from the nature of a horn There are some which mingle the Rhinoceros with the Unicorn for that which is named the Rhinoceros horn is at this day in Physical use of which notwithstanding the Authors have declared no effectual force Some say that the Unicorns horn doth sweat having any poyson coming over it which is false it doth perhaps sometimes sweat even as some solid hard and light substance as also stones and glass some external vapour being about them but this doth nothing appertain to poyson It is in like manner reported that a kinde of stone called the Serpents tongue doth sweat having poyson come over it I have heard and read in a certain book written with ones hands that the true horn of a Unicorn is to be proved in this manner To give to two Pigeons poyson red Arsnick or Orpin the one which drinketh a little of the true Unicorns horn will be healed the other will die I do leave this manner of trial unto rich men For the price of that which is true is reported at this day to be of no less value then gold Some do sell the weight thereof for a floren or eight pence some for a crown or twelve pence But the marrow thereof is certainly of a greater price then that which is of harder substance Some likewise do sell a dram thereof for two pence half penny so great is the diversity thereof For experience of the Unicorns horns to know whether it be right or not put silk upon a burning coal and upon the silk the aforesaid horn and if so be that it be true the silk will not be a whit consumed The horns of Unicorns especially that which is brought from new Islands being beaten and drunk in water doth wonderfully help against poyson as of late experience doth manifest unto us a man who having taken poyson beginning to swell was preserved by this remedy I my self have heard of a man worthy to be believed that having eaten a poysoned cherry and perceiving his belly to swell he cured himself by the marrow of this horn being drunk in Wine in very short space The same is also praised at this day for the curing of the Falling sickness and affirmed by Aelianus who called this disease cursed The ancient Writers did attribute the force of healing to cups made of this horn Wine being drunk out of them but because we cannot have cups we drink the substance of the horn either by it self or with other medicines I happily sometime made this Sugar of the horn as they call it mingling with the same Amber Ivory dust leaves of gold coral certain other things the horn being included in silk and beaten in the decotion of Raisins and Cinamon I cast them is water the rest of the reason of healing in the mean time not being neglected It is moreover commended of Physitians of our time against the pestilent feaver as Aloisius Mundellus writeth against the bitings of ravenous Dogs and the strokes or poysonsome stings of other creatures and privately in rich mens houses against the belly or maw worms to conclude it is given against all poyson whatsoever as also against many most grievous diseases The King of the Indians drinking out of a cup made of an Indian Unicorns horn and being asked wherefore he did it whether it were for the love of drunkenness made answer that by that drink drunkenness was both expelled and resisted and worser things cured meaning that it clean abolished all poyson whatsoever The horn of a Unicorn doth heal that detestable disease in men called S. Johns evill otherwise the cursed disease The horn of an Unicorn being beaten and boiled in Wine hath a wonderful effect in making the teeth white or clear the mouth being well cleansed therewith And thus much shall suffice for the medicines and vertues arising from the Unicorn Of the VRE-OX THis beast is called by the Latines Vrus by the Germans Aurox and Vrox and Grossevesent by the Lituanians Thur the Scythians Bubri and these beasts were not known to the Grecians as Pliny writeth of whom Seneca writeth in this manner Tibi dant variae pectora Tigres Tibi villosi terga Bisontes Latisque feri cornibus uri And Viâ—gil also maketh mention of them in his Georgicks writing of the culture or tilling of Vines Texenda saepes etiam pecus omne tenendum Praecipuâ— cum frons tenera imprudensâ— laborum Cui super indignas hyemes â—olemque potentem Silvestres uri assidue capreaeque sequaces Illudunt These wilde beasts or Ure-oxes are wilde Oxen differing from all other kindes already rehearsed in the story of Oxen Bugles Bisons or any other although some have unskilfully taken them for Bisons and Sir Thomas Eliot in his Dictionary doth English Vrus a Bugil but beside him no body that I know and for this cause he is reprehended by other Now although there be nothing in this beast but ordinary yet seeing it is a creature so well known we have less reason to omit his shape and story lest we should justly be condemned of negligenee and carelesneâ—s In outward proportion of the body it differeth little from the Bull It is very thick and his back somewhat bunched up and his length from the head to the tail is short no ways answerable to the proportion of his stature and sides the horns as some say are but short yet black broad and thick his eyes red a broad mouth and a great broad head his temples hairy a beard upon his chin but short and the colour thereof black his other parts as namely in the face sides legs and tail of a reddish colour These are in the wood Hercynia in the Pyrâ—ney Mountains and in Mazovia near Lituania They are call'd Vri of Oron that is the Mountains because their savage wildeness so great that they seldom descend from those safeguards They far excel Bulls and other wilde Oxen coming nearer to the quantity or stature of Elephants then to the Bull. In resemblance a man would think them to be compounded of a Mule and a Hart for their outward resemblance so seem It is said they could never be taken by men although they were taken when they were young yet they love other heards of Cattel and will not forsake them easily after they have once joyned themselves unto them whereby many times they are deceived and killed twenty thirty or forty at a time Caligula Caesar brought of these alive to Rome and did shew them in publick spectacle to the people and at that time they were taken for wilde Bulls Some affirm that there are of these in Prussia and that they are so wilde cruel and
confirm by another fable of Medus whose â—ead after it was cut off it is said to bring forth Chrysaor and Pegasus some do alledge for this opinion that the Crowes and the Ibis do conceive at their mouths but this is certain that they have placâ—s of conception underneath their tails like other four-footed beasts and therefore how it should come to passe that their young ones should come forth at their mouths I cannot easily leard It may be that the opinion thereof first arose from the sight of some old one carrying her young in her mouth for the young ones are very small like Mice and therefore it is likely that they remove them to and fro as Cats do their young ones for they are in continuall fear lest they should be taken and destroyed by men or by some other enemy beast The dung of Weasels doth smell many times like musk the reason whereof we have shewed your in another place all of them in generall have a most rank and filthy savour It is a ravening and destroying beast and although the body of it be very small yet is the wit and understanding of it very great for with singular art and subtilty it comâ—asseth his prey whereupon there lyeth this history of Galanthis the maid of Alomena as Perottus observeth out of Ovid. When Alomena was in long travel and childe-birth it is said that the maid perceiving she was hindered by Lucina craftily obtained not only the knowledge of the cause by Lucina but also the remedy whereupon she â—ased her Lady like a true and faithfull servant of many pains Lucina seeing that she was beguiled by Galanthis and that her crafty wit had over-reached a Goddesse she turned her into a Weasell for her punishment that as she had sinned by revealing of the counsell of the Goddess so she should be punished to bring forth all her young ones at her mouth as Weasels do and for this occasion the Domesticall Weasel like a Maid doth continually live in houses and her colour yellowish like the hair of Galanthis thus say they of metamorphosing and transforming Other some say that when Alomena was in travail of Hercules having indured long torments she was delivered by the sight of a Weasel which came in her presence and therefore the Theban Grecians do religiously worship a Weasel for they say that as it was nourisht by Hecate the Goddesse so it did nourish Hercules but herein they take Gale for Galanthis aforesaid that is a Weasel for Alomenaes maid And seeing we have begun to talk of transformations I will adde another thing out of Stobeus not impertinent to this common place for he writeth in the dispraise of women that the diversity of their dispositions perswadeth him that some of them are derived from one beast and some from another and namely those which come of Weasels are a miserable sullen and sorrowfull kinde of women to whom nothing is pleasing delightfull or acceptable but having no minde to the pleasure of Venus loathing her husband hurteth her neighbours robbeth her self and devoureth consecrated and hallowed things even after the manner of Weasels which will take a booty from the Altar Thus saith he which I beleive to be true in the comparison but not in the generation or transmutation of women from Weasels I do marvail how it came to passe that a Weasel was called an unhappy unfortunate and unlucky beast among Hunters for they held opinion here in England that if they meet with a Weasel in the morning they shall not speed well that day therefore the Grecians say Galesteir and Alciatus hath an excellent Emblem whereby he insinuateth that it is not good to have a Weasel run upon ones left hand and therefore adviseth a man to give over his enterprize after such an Omen Now although I would have no wise man to stand in fear of such a superstitious conceit yet I will subscribe his verses more for variety and elegancy then for truth Auspiciis res coepta malis bone cedere nescit Foelici quae sunt omine facta juvant Quicquid ages Mustela tibi si occurret omitte Signa malae haec sortis bestia prava gerit It should seem thaâ— the beginning of this opinion did come from the punishment of a certain Generall of the Corinthians Navy who being perjured in breaking his faith to that State came running away from them and they say that afterwards he could never sleep but that he dreamed Weasels came and tore his flesh from his body At last through anguish and grief of minde he slew himself These things are reported by Heraclides which whether they be true or false are but a silly and slender foundation to build upon them a Propheticall opinion or presage future evils and so I will leave the morall part of the Weasel and return again to the naturall They have knowledge like Mice and Rats to run out of houses before their downfall They live in hatred with the Serpent that hunteth Mice for by eating of Rue they drive them out of houses wherein they inhabit and this is a wonderfull work of God that this silly beast should have the knowledge of the vertue of that herb and not only arm her self with it because it is hatefull to Serpents and they in no wise in nature able to abide it but also by it to restore to life again her young ones after they are dead There is a poyson in Weasels which destroyeth the Cockatrice for when the Weasel findeth the Cockatrices hole or den she layeth her poyson in the mouth thereof whereby two contrary natures meet and fight and the lesser overcometh the greater and this is affirmed both by Pliny and Solinus wherefore all manner of Cattle do fear Weasels They hunt all manner of birds pulling out their throat as a Wolf doth a Sheeps They will play with Hares till they have wearyed them and then destroy them they are in perpetuall enmity with Swine Ravens Crowes and Cats for although Cats sometimes set upon them yet they cannot overcome them In many places of Italy they are nourished tame for as Ferrets are used to fetch Conies out of the earth so are Weasels by tying a string about their neck to fetch young Pigeons out of Dove-cotes and birds out of their nests If the powder of a Weasel be given unto a Cock Chickens or Pigeons it is said they shall never be annoyed by Weasels Likewise if the brain of a Weasel be mingled with a rennet in Cheeses it keepeth them from being touched with mice or corrupted with age The flesh of a Weasel is not used for meat but dried and preserved for medicines The powder thereof mixed with water driveth away Mice by casting the gall of Stellius in a house where Weasels are gathered together and then by Oyl of bitter Almonds or salt Ammoniak they are killed but if one of their tails be cut off all the residue do forsake the house And thus
much shall suffice concerning the History of Weasels now followeth the medicines arising out of their bodies The Medicines arising from the Weasel A Weasel being applyed unto those which are troubled with Agues or Quartern Feavers doth in short time cure them It doth also being mingled with other things make a wonderfull pleasant mollifying medicine for those which are troubled with the gout or any other infirmity in the joynts and easeth those which have a continuall ache in the head leaving a certain matter on the top thereof and stroaking it from the forehead to the hinder part of the head For the curing also of the gout this is an excellent remedy To take a little young whelp alive well fatted and a living VVeasel in nine pints of Oyl and unto the same two or three pounds of Butter and to boyl them together untill the beasts be made lank or lither and then to put your hands or feet a whole day in hot Oyl well strained Avicenna attributeth certain things to VVeasels flesh only which the classicall Authors rather ascribe to the powder of VVeasels which are these to be applyed to the gout being drunk in wine against the Failing sicknesse and the head-ache but it is accounted an especiall remedy against the bitings of Scorpions The flesh of a VVeasel being taken is a very good and effectuall preservative against all poysons The same being taken in meat the head and feet only cast away doth help those which are troubled with wens or bunches in the flesh being first anoynted with the blood of the same beast The bloud of a VVeasel is very well applyed to broken or exulcerated sores in the flesh The same vertue hath the whole body of a Weasel boyled in wine being in the manner of a plaister placed thereunto For the expelling of the gout take a dead Weasel and boyl him in Oyl untill it be made liquid then strain forth the Oyl and mingle it with wax fashioning the same in the form of a plaister and this being in good order applyed will in very short time expell it quite away A house Weasel is wont to be burned for divers remedies and to be embowelled with salt and dryed in a shade But there are some late writers which affirm that a Weasel is better being dryed or burned for the said disease then used in the aforesaid manner some also which are more foolish think it best being only salted but it is more proper being used in the first manner The bodies of creatures which are dry by nature being dryed by the sprinkling of salt upon them are unmeet for food for a certain man going about to salt a Hare made it like unto a dryed VVeasel Some have written that the flesh of a Hedge-hog dried doth very much profit those which are troubled with an outward or inward leprosie which if it can effect it will more strongly have a drying force or power even as the flesh of a VVeasel being dryed and drunk in wine expelleth poyson A vulgar VVeasel being kept very old and drunk in wine to the quantity of two drams is accounted a present remedy against the venom or stings of Serpents A young VVeasel being prepared as is before said that is to say embowelled with salt is of good force against all ill medicines A VVeasel used in the same manner doth presently cure the bites of Serpents A VVeasel being burnt and dryed especially the belly thereof is accounted an excellent remedy against the bitings of any other wilde beast Some small part of the belly of a young VVeasel to the quantity of two drams being stuffed with Coriander and drunk in wine is given to those that are smitten by Serpents and is curable for them The flesh of a VVeasel being burnt mingled with Rue and wine and so drunk is very medicinable for the curing of the bites of all creatures The young whelps of VVeasels being imbowelled with salt is very profitable for the healing of the deadly stinging or biting of the Spider called Phalangium The whelp of a Weasel doth cure the venemous bitings of the Shrew The flesh of a Weasel being dryed doth strongly drie and separate by both which forces those are healed which are troubled with the Falling sicknesse having drunk it in wine This vertue is also attributed unto the bloud of Weasels A Weasel being dryed and drunk in wine doth heal those that are troubled with the Palsie or shaking of the joynts Concerning the powder of Weasels there are many things read But Galen writeth that he never burned this creature that he might try the excellency thereof The bloud and powder of a Weasel are very profitable being anoynted on those whole bodies are vext with the leprosie according to the saying of Serenus in these verses Elephanti Morbo adversus erit cedri de cortice succus Mustelaeve cinis vel fusus sanguis ab illa The powder of a Weasel being mingled with the bloud of a young Swallow doth heal the Quinsie or Squinzie the inflamation of the jawes as also those which are grieved with the strangury being either taken in bread or in drink The same is also very effectuall for the expelling of wens or bunches in the body and healeth those which are troubled with the Falling sicknesse being dayly taken in drink The same diseases are both healed by this medicine to burn a living Weasel altogether in an earthen pot and to mingle with the powder thereof Hony Turpentine and Butter of each a sufficient quantity and in the manner of an Oyntment to apply it unto the bodies of the grieved parties The bloud of a Swallow and a Weasel are commended by some to be very congruent and agreeable but Pliny Avicenna and the rest of the antient writers commend the blood of a Weasel only to be very medicinable for these diseases following namely the Falling sickness the Foul evil and the head-ache The powder of a Weasel being mingled in water and given to one that is mad or frenzy to drink is reported by some to be very good and profitable for him if so be that they can compell the frantick person to perceive it The powder of a Weasel is very effectuall for the expelling or taking away of the pin and web in the eyes There is a speedy remedy for the driving away of rheum in the head and the Catarrh swelling by rheum in the jawes which is this To take a Weasel upon a Thursday in the old Moon and put him alive in an unburned pot that in the Boyling he may be torn and dryed into powder which powder being gathered together and well tempered with Hony to give it to the diseased person every day in a spoon fasting to the quantity of three drams and it will in short space wonderfully ease him A Weasel being burnt and the powder thereof wrapped in some sear-cloth which is anoynted over with the Oyl of
feed upon little small and weak creatures but there are also wilde common Wolves who lie in wait to destroy their herds of Cattell and flocks of Sheep against whom the people of the Countrey do ordain generall huntings taking more care to destroy the young ones then the old that so the breeders and hope of continuance may be taken away And some also do keep of the Whelps alive shutting of them up close and taming them especially females who afterwards engender with Dogs whose Whelps are the most excellent keepers of flocks and the most enemies to Wolves of all other There be some have thought that Dogs and Wolves are one kinde namely that vulgar Dogs are tame Wolves and ravening Wolves are wilde Dogs But Scaliger hath learnedly consuted this opinion shewing that they are two distinct kindes not joyned together in nature nor in any natural action except by constraint for he saith that there are divers wild Dogs that are not Wolves and so have continued for many years in a hill called Mountfalcon altogether refusing the society and service of men yea sometimes killing and eating them and they have neither the face nor the voyce nor the stature nor the conditions of Wolves for in their greatest extremity of hunger they never set upon flocks of Sheep so that it is unreasonable to affirm that Wolves are wilde Dogs although it must needs be confessed that in outward proportion they are very like unto them Some have thought that Wolfs cannot bark but that is false as Albertus writeth upon his own knowledge the voyce of Wolfs is called Vlulatus howling according to these verses Ast Lupus ipse ululat frendet agrestis aper And again Per noctem resonare Lupis ululantibus urbes It should seem that the word Vlulatus which the Germans translate Heulen the French Hurler and we in English howling is derived either from imitation of the beasts voice or from a night whooping Bird called Vlula I will not contend but leave the Reader to either of both for it may be that it cometh from the Greek word Ololu zein which signifieth to mourn and howl after a lamenrable manner and so indeed Wolfs do never howl but when they are oppressed with famin And thus I leave the discourse of their voyce with the Annotation of Servius Vlulare Canum est Furiarum To howl is the voyce of Dogs and Furies Although there be great difference of colors in Wolfs as already I have shewed yet most commonly they are gray and hoary that is white mixed with other colours and therefore the Grecians in imitation thereof do call their twy-light which is betwixt day and night as it were participating of black and white Lycophos Wolf-light because the upper side of the Wolfs hair is brown and the neather part white It is said that the shaggy hair of a Wolf is full of vermin and worms and it may well be for it hath been proved that the skin of a Sheep which was killed by a Wolf breedeth worms The brains of a Wolf do decrease and increase with the Moon and their eyes are yellow black and very bright sending forth beams like fire and carrying in them apparent tokens of wrath and malice and for this cause it is said they see better in the night then in the day being herein unlike unto men that see better in the day then in the night for reason giveth light to their eyes and appetite to beasts and therefore of ancient time the Wolf was dedicated to the Sun for the quickness of his seeing sense and because he seeth far And such as is the quickness of his sense in seeing such also it is in smelling for it is reported that in time of hunger by the benefit of the winde he smelleth his prey a mile and a half or two mile off for their teeth they are called Charcharodontes that is sawed yet they are smooth sharp and unequal and therefore bite deep as we have shewed already for this cause the sharpest bits of Horses are called Lupata All beasts that are devourers of flesh do open their mouths wide that they may bite more strongly and especially the Wolf The neck of a Wolf standeth on a straight bone that cannot well bend therefore like the Hyaena when he would look backwards he must turn round about the same neck is short which argueth a treacherous nature It is said that if the heart of a Wolf be kept dry it rendreth a most fragrant or sweet smelling savour The liver of a Wolf is like to a Horses hoof and in the bladder there is called a certain stone call'd Syrites being in colour like Saffron or Hony yet inwardly contains certain weak shining stars this is not the stone called Syriacus or Indicus which is desired for the vertue of it against the stone in the bladder The fore-feet have five distinct toes and the hinder-feet but four because the fore-feet serve in stead of hands in Lions Dogs Wolfs and Panthers We have spoken already of their celerity in running and therefore they are not compared to Lions which go foot by foot but unto the swiftest Dogs It is said they will swim and go into the water two by two every one hanging upon anothers tail which they take in their mouths and therefore they are compared to the days of the year which do successively follow one another being therefore called Lucabas For by this successive swimming they are better strengthened against impression of the flouds and not lost in the waters by any over-flowing waves or billows Great is the voracity of this beast for they are so insatiable that they devour hair and bones with the flesh which they eat for which cause they render it whole again in their excrements and therefore they never grow fat It was well said of a learned man Lupus vorat potius quam comedit carnes pauco utitur potu That is A Wolf is said rather to raven then to eat his meat When they are hungry they rage much and although they be nourished tame yet can they not abide any man to look upon them while they eat when they are once satisfied they endure hunger a great time for their bellies standeth out their tongue swelleth their mouth is stopped for when they have drove away their hunger with abundance of meat they are unto men and beasts as meek as Lambs till they be hungry again neither are they moved to rapine though they go through a flock of sheep but in short time after their bellies and tongue are calling for more meat and then saith mine Author In antiquam figuram redit iterumque Lupus existit That is They return to their former conditions and become as ravening as before Neither ought this to seem strange unto any man for the like things are formerly reported of the Lion and it is said that Wolfs are most dangerous to be met with all towards the
the greatest in the world are found in India for there they grow to such a quantity that they swallow up whole Bulls and great Stags Wherefore I do not marvel that Porus the King of India sent to Augustus Caesar very huge Vipers a Serpent of ten cubits long a Tortoise of three cubits and a Partridge greater then a Vulture For Alexander in his Navigation upon the Red-sea saith that he saw Serpents forty cubits long and all their other parts and members of the same quantity Among the Scyritae the Serpents come by great swarms upon their flocks of Sheep and cattel and some they eat up all others they kill and suck out the bloud and some part they carry away But if ever there were any thing beyond credit it is the relation of Volateran in his twelfth Book of the New-found Lands wherein he writeth that there are Serpents of a mile long which at one certain time of the year come abroad out of their holes and dens of habitation and destroy both the Heards and Heard-men if they find them Much more favourable are the Serpents of a Spanish Island who do no harm to any living thing although they have huge bodies and great strength to accomplish their desires In the Kingdom of Senega their Serpents are so great that they devour whole Beasts as Goats and such like without breaking any one of their bones In Calechute they are as great as their greatest Swine and not much unlike them except in their head which doth far exceed a Swines And because the King of that Countrey hath made a Law that no man kill a Serpent under pain of death they are as great in number as they are in quantity for so great is his error that he deemeth it as lawful to kill a Man as a Serpens All kindes of Serpents are referred to their place of habitation which is either the earth or the waters of the earth and the Serpents of the earth are more in number then the Serpents of the water except the Serpents of the Sea And yet it is thought by the most learned Rabbins that the Serpents of the Sea are fishes in the likeness of Dragons Now the places of Serpents abode being thus generally capitulated we must enter into a farther narration of their habitations and regions of their native breeding In the first place India nourisheth many and divers sorts of Serpents especially in the Kingdom of Morfilium and Alexander the Emperor found among other Beasts sundry kindes of Serpents in a long Desert which is on the North-side of India But all the Nations of the World may give place to Aethiopia for multitude and variety for there they gather together on heaps and lie in compass like round hills visibly apparent to the eyes of them that behold them a far off The like is said of all Africa for in Numidia every year there are many men women and children destroyed by Serpents The Island Pharus is also by the testimony of the Egyptians filled with Serpents The Coasts of Elymais are annoyed by Serpents and the Caspians are so annoyed by Serpents which come swimming in the floods that men cannot sail that ways but in the Winter time For from the beginning of the Spring or aequinoctal they seem for their number to approach ravening like Troops and Armies There are certain Islands called Ophiusae insâ—â—ae named after Ophis a Serpent for the multitude bred therein And there are Serpents in Candy Ephesus and all hot Countries for this priviledge hath GOD in nature given to the colder Countreys that they are less annoyed with Serpents and their Serpents also less nocent and hurtful and therefore the Serpents of Europe are fewer in number lesser in quantity and more resistable for their weakness and strength There were a people in Campania called Osci because of the multitude of Serpents bred among them Likewise there are great store in Lombardy and Ferrata And whereas we have said that the most nocent and harmful Serpents are bred in the hottest Regions where they engender more speedily and also grow into greater proportions yet is it not to be understood of any special property appertaining to them alone for I read in Olaus Magnus his description of the Northern Regions of Serpents of as great quantity as in any other place of the world but yet their poyson is not half so venomous and hurtful as in the hotter Regions especially the African Serpents In Bâ—tina near Livonia there are great store of great Serpents also so that the Heard-men are at continual war and contention with them for defence of their flock Likewise in the Mountains of Helvetia and Avergne whereof there are many wonders reported in the World which I will not stand upon to relate in this place We read also that some places have been disinhabited and dispeopled by Serpents such were the people of Scythia called Neuri who before the war of Darius were constrained to forsake their soil because they were annoyed not only with home-bred Serpents but also with many other which came from other parts and so the Countrey remaineth desolate to this present day the ancient Inhabitants being all removed to dwell among the Buditani The City Amyclae in Italy as M. Varro writeth was destroyed also by Serpents And there be certain places of the world which have received their denomination from Serpents besides the Ophiusae near Creie The Island Tenos was called Hydrussa and Ophiussa so were Cremiuscos Aepolium and the Mountains Macrocremnii Rhodus and the long Islands Ophiades in the Arabian coast which after it had remained along time desert was purged and cleared from Serpents by the Kings of Egypt Nicanetus also calleth Cyprus Ophiodia And in Pausanias we read of a place named Opheos Kephale the Serpents head The like might be said of Rivers as of Orontes called also Ophites and Ophis in Pontus which divideth asunder Colchis and the Countrey Thiamica Ebusus nourisheth no Serpents and the Earth thereof hath in it a secret vertue to drive away Serpents wherefore it is much desired of all men to carry about them for that it hath been often proved that never any venomous beast durst adventure upon any man possessed thereof The like is said of Ireland as our own Chronicles do plentifully declare and therefore I will spare to enter into any narration thereof To come therefore to the more particular abode of Serpents especially of such as are known to us we must leave off the talk and nomination of Kingdoms and descend to dens holes caves dunghils Sheep-coats valleys rocks hollow-walls and trees woods green pastures hedges and such like places wherein they make their most abode And now and then in these Northern parts of the world and yet seldom they dive down into the bottom or roots of trees especially such as are green all the Winter time For they finde in them a greater heat
Fennel and Ivy and for this later both Pliny and Textor do not without great cause wonder that ever there was any honour ascribed or given to the Ivy seeing that Serpents the most unreconcileable enemies of man-kinde delight so much therein But herein the Devil blinded their reason as he did the modest women that worshipped Priapus or the Tartars which at this day worship the Devil to the end that he should do them no harm Thus much I can only say of the friends and lovers of Serpents by the multitude whereof we may conjecture how among other parts of the curse of God upon them they are held accursed both by man and Beast Now then it followeth that we enter into a more particular description or rather a relation of that hatred which is between them and other creatures and first I will begin with their arch enemy I mean Man-kinde For when GOD at the beginning did pronounce his sentence against the Serpent for deceiving our first Parents among other things he said I will put enmity betwixt thee and the Woman betwixt thy seed and the Womans seed Whereby he did signifie that perpetual war and unappeasable discord which should be for ever by his own appointment betwixt them And the truth hereof is to be seen at this day for by a kinde of secret instinct and natural motion a man abhorreth the sight of a Serpent and a Serpent the sight of a man And as by the tongue of the Serpent was wrought mans confusion so by the spittle of a mans tongue is wrought a Serpents astonishment For indeed such is the Ordinance of God that Men and Serpents should ever annoy and vex each other And this Erasmus saith shall continue as long as meminerimus illius inauspicati pomi we shall remember that unfortunate Apple Isidorus saith that Serpents are afraid of a man naked but will leap upon and devour a man clothed Which thing is also affirmed by Olaus Magnus for he saith that when he was a boy he often tryed it that when he was naked he found little or no resistance in Serpents and did safely without all danger combat with them hand to hand I my self also in my younger time when I was about ten or twelve years old used many times in the Spring and Summer time to wash my self with other my Colleagues in certain fish-ponds wherein I have seen and met with divers Water-snakes without all harm and I did never in my life hear of any harm they did to any of my fellows being naked neither did I ever see any of them run away so fast on the land as they did fly from us in the water and yet are not the Water-snakes less hurtful then the Land-adders And this was well known to many About the beginning or Fountain Springs of Euphrates it is said that there are certain Serpents which know strangers from the people of the Countrey wherefore they do no harm to the natural born Country-men but with strangers and men of other Countreys they fight with might and main And along the banks of Euphrates in Syria they also do the like saving that if they chance to be trode upon by any of the people of those parts they bite like as a Dog doth without any great harm but if any other forainer or stranger annoy them they also repay him with malice for they bite him and intolerably vex him wherefore the Countrey-men nourish them and do them no harm Such as these are also found in Tirinthus but they are very little ones and are thought to be engendered of the earth The first manifestation in nature of Mans discord with Serpents is their venom for as in a Serpent there is a venom which poysoneth a Man so in a Man there is the venom of his spittle which poysoneth a Serpent For if the fasting spittle of a Man fall into the jaws of a Serpent he certainly dyeth thereof And of this thus writeth the Poet Lucretius Est utique ut Serpens hominis quae tacta salivis Disperit ac sese mandendo conficit ipsa In English thus As Serpent dyeth when spittle of Man he tasteth Gnashing his teeth to eat himself he wasteth The cause of this the Philosophers which knew nothing of Adams fall or the forbidden Apple do assign to be in the contrariety betwixt the living souls or spirits of these Creatures for the Serpents life is cold and dry and the Humane life hot and moist wherefore either of both abhorreth one the other and the Serpent leapeth as far from a Mans spittle as it would do out of a vessel of scalding water Agatharsides writeth that there was a King in Africk called Psyllus whose Sepulchre was preserved in the greater Syrtes From this King there were certain people named Psyllians in whose bodies there was a certain inbred and natural power to kill or at the least to astonish Serpents Spiders Toads and such like and lay them for dead even by the savour or smell of them And the manner of these men to try the chastity of their Wives was to take their children newly born and to cast them unto direful Serpents for if they were of the right line and lawfully begotten then did the Serpents die before them but if they were adulterous and the children of strangers the Serpents would eat and devour them Pliny affirmeth that even in his days there were some of those people alive among the Nasamons who destroyed many of them and did possess their places yet some running from death escaped Generally such people were called Marsi and Psilli for the Marsi were a people of Italy descended of Circes as is said in whom there was a vertue to cure all the stinging of Serpents by touching the wounded places Such saith Crates Pergamenus are in Hellespont about the River Parius And some are of opinion that at the beginning they were Ophiogenes born or bred of Serpents or that some great Nobleman father of that Countrey was of a Serpent made a man And Vario saith that in his time there were some few men alive in whose spittle was found that vertue to resist and cure the poyson of venomous Beasts But having named Ophiogenes or Anguâ—genae that is Men bred of Serpents or Snakes I see no cause why it should be judged that those which cure Serpents poyson should be so misjudged for to cure poyson is not the work of poyson but of an Antidote or contrary power to poyson and therefore curers and resisters of poyson are without all learning called Ophiogenes that is Serpents brood but rather that term belongeth more justly to those people whose nature is sociable with Serpents and Serpents agree with them as they would do with their own kinde Such an one was Exagon the Embassadour of Rome who at the commandement of the Consuls for their experience was cast naked into a vessel or tun of Snakes who did him no harm but licked him with their
that hateful monster Heliogabalus having by the help of the Marsick Priests gathered together many Serpents one day in the morning when the people were gathered together to see some rare and unheard of spectacle suddenly he let loose the Serpents and hurt many of the people Tzetzes telleth another story of a devise or warlike stratagem how Serpents by slings or trunks were sent abroad among the Camps of their enemies So doth Galen of Serpents included in an earthen pot and cast like darts among the Tents of the Romans And so did Hannibal shew to Antiochus how in a battel by Sea he might shoot Serpents among the Mariners to his Enemies and hinder their rowing â—or when he did follow the same devise at Prusiae he went away Victor and Conqueror And thus I will conclude this part with the Emblem of Alciatus which he wrote unto the Duke of Milliâ—â— upon his Arms being an Infant proceeding out of a Snakes jaws Exiliens Infans sinuosi è faucibus anguis Est Gentilitiis nobile stemma tuis Talia Pelleum gessisse numismata regem Vidimus â—â—sque â—uum concelebrasse genus Dum se Ammone satum matrem anguis imagine lusaÌ„ Divini sobolem numinis esse docet Ore exit tradunt sic quosdam enitier angues An quia sic Pallas de capite orta Jovis In English thus Out of the mouth of winding Snake Great Duke this is thy Crest A leaping Infant making scape From jawes a wofull rest The like Coat did Pelleus King Vpon his silver presse As we have seen the fame to sing Of Kindreds worthinesse For whiles of Jove he glorieth Descended of his race He feigns his mother like a Snake Born of Divinest grace But why proceeding from the mouth Some Serpents so are bred Or else that Pallas issueth Out of great Jove his head And the like by the same Author is expressed upon this Theam That the wisdome of man is foolishnesse with GOD therefore upon the unnaturall conjunction of two mortall enemies framed into one body he thus writeth elegantly Quid dicam quodnam hoc compellem nomine MonstruÌ„ Bâ—forme quod non est homo nec est draco Sed sine vir pedibus summis sine partibus anguis Vir angui-pes dici homiceps anguis potest Anguem pedit homo hominem ructavit anguis Nec finis hominis est initium nec est fera Sic olim Cecrops doctis regnavit Athenis Sic Gigantes terra mater protulit Haec vafrum species sed religione carentem Terrena tantum quique curet induat That is to say What shall I call or how this Monster rightly name Biformed which nor man nor Dragon in all the same But man unlegged and Snake unheaded doubtfull parts Man snake Snake-man exceeding humane arts Mans tail breeds Snake and Snake a man up-casteth One end is not of man nor other of wilde beast tasteth Such one was Cecrops learned Athens King And Giants such did earthly mother bring Mishapen then an earthly minde expresseth Devoid of grace for worlds good only wisheth Thus then I will leave to talk of our most just and by GOD ordained hostility betwixt men and Serpents and descend to a particular discovery how Serpents and other beasts are for mans sake at the like enmity And first of all I will begin with the Fowls and so descend to Four-footed beasts and Insects or imperfect creatures Eagles are alway in warre with Serpents from an high they espy them and suddainly flie down upon them with a great noyse or cry tearing out their bowels and casting aside their venom or poyson And some as Albertus say that they will in particular deal with Vipers Tigers and Dragons when she seeth them hunting those small beasts or birds which are her prey This fight is thus described by Virgil how the Eagle griping the Serpent in her talons flyeth into the air Vtque volans alte raptum cum fulva draconem Fert Aquila implicuitque pedes atque unguibus haesit Saucius Serpens sinuosa volumina versat Arrectis horret squammis sibilat ore Arduâ—s insurgens illa haud minus urget adunâ—â— Luctantem rostro simul aethera verberat alis In English thus As Eagle flyeth on high and in her clawes a Dragon beareth Folded within her feet wounded dying to her talons cleaveth The Serpent fierce now windeth round and with her head erected Hissing out threats rough scales upsetteth that were dejected To fright her â—o but all in vain for she with beak doth strive And beat the air with wings of force till Dragon cease to live There is in the seventh book of Aelianus History of living Cretures a notable and elegant story of an Eagle which was almost overcome by a Serpent and yet preserved and made Conquerour by a man There was saith he sixteen men which were threshing of corn in the heat of the Sun by reason whereof they became very thirsty then they agreed to send one of their company to a Fountain not far off to fetch some water for them all to drink and so the Messenger coming to the Fountain found an Eagle almost killed by a Serpent for whiles from an high she beheld the Serpent being more greedy of the prey for to feed her young then wary to avoid danger fell down upon her booty which was too strong for her for the Serpent received her adversary with fell force power and preparation to stifle her and so indeed she had accomplished had not by chance this thresher come unto them for the Serpent had so ensnared and wrapped up the Eagle with her long body that she was nearer ad pereundum quam ad perdendum that is to be killed then to kill or get a prey The Man beholding the sight with his sickle cut asunder the Serpent and so delivered the Eagle but how the Eagle requited the Man shall be shewed in the history of the Eagle In the Mountains of Morfilium there are great store of great Serpents which are very dangerous but there are also great white Eagles which do eat and destroy them Some say that the Vulture doth destroy Serpents but herein I cannot be satisfied for all Eagles do not hunt after this game but only the lesser sort of them Eagles when they build their nest to breed in they seek out a certain stone called Aëtites the vertue whereof keepeth Serpents from their young and also make their eggs fruitful so as it is a very rare thing for Eagles to have a rotten egge All kindes of great Hawks Bussards and Kites are also enemies to Serpents Snakes and Adders and the Kites will eat them if they finde them alive or dead as I my self have often seen by experience The Storks also do hunt after Serpents wherefore in Thessaly it is as unlawful to kill a Stork as to kill a Man for they have many devises to catch Serpents and all venomous Beasts and thereof to eat
Rusius saith that it is good to give the flesh and decoction of Serpents to madde biting and striking Horses And that the fat of a Serpent c. doth cure the puffing or swellings that arise in Horses backs which come by means of any compression or close fitting and thrusting down Item The unguent that droppeth from a Serpent whilest he is rosted on a spit is highly commended for Fistulaes that are in Horses hoofs Galen and Rasius do counsell us to cut in pieces a Snake or Serpent and to lay the fat thereof upon a stick and to anoynt the outward parts of the hoof of any Horse Horseleaches live Mice the green Lizard being burned if they be given to a Hawk in her meat they do cause a speedy mutation of her feathers or wings and the same effect have little River-fishes finely beaten or stamped if they be cast upon any meat Item the Serpent that is speckled and of divers and sundry colours of all others hath the least poyson and in the German tongue it is called Huf peradventure it is that which we call a Snake if I say you take this Serpent and boyl it with Wheat and give the same Wheat to a Hen to feed upon being mingled amongst her meat and drink with the venom of a Serpent a Hawk being fed with the flesh of such a Hen forthwith casteth her sick feathers and is freed from any other disease if she have any at all as Albertus saith The old skin of an Adder or Snake that he casts off in the Spring time if it be rubbed upon the eyes cleareth the sight as Pliny saith And Galen biddeth us if any be troubled with bloud-shotten eys to take the old cast skin of Serpents being beaten with Sea water to anoint them therewithal And Cardan saith that the cast skin of a Snake if the eyes be rubbed therewith every morning that they will never be very dim of sight nor yet ever have any pin or web in them Amongst compositions that are made for the eyes they use to mix the cast skin of Snakes as Diocles affirmeth adding further that the old age or cast skin of a Snake being boiled in Wine is an excellent help for pain in the ears if a little thereof be dropped into them Boyl the cast skin of a Snake with tops of Poppy and drop a little thereof into the ears if any be troubled with spain thereof and this is an excellent remedy as Galen in his third Book De Composit medicam sâ—c loca hath taught us having himself learned the same from Archigenes The cast skin of Serpents being burned in a pot or on a hot burning tyle-shard if it be mingled with Oyl of Roses and so dropt into the ears is proved to be very effectual against all sores and sicknesses of the ears but especially against the stinking favour of them or if they be purulent or full of matter then to be mixt with with Vinegar Some use to mingle Bulls gall therewith and the juyce of the flesh of Tortoises being boyled Marcellus saith that if you take the gall of a Calf with a like quantity of Vinegar and mix them with the cast skin of a Serpent if then you dip a little Wooll into this medicine and put it into the ear that it helpeth very much especially if with a spunge being soked in warm-water you first foment the ear Diosoroides and Galen do affirm that the cast skin of a Serpent if it be boiled in Wine doth cure the tooth-ach if the pained place be washed therewith But yet in intolerable pain 〈…〉 the teeth this is proved more singular Take the cast skin of a Serpent and burn it then temper it with Oyl till it come to the thickness or consistence of hard Honey and cover the tooth being first scoured and cleansed therewith anointing all the neer places to the same and put some of it into the hollowness of the tooth And as Archigenes saith if you lay the cast skin of a Snake unto the teeth not being burnt they will all fall out It cureth likewise the lowsie evill called Phihiriasis And Galen prescribeth this cast skin of Snakes or Serpents for a remedy against the Colick if it be put into a brass pot with some Oyl and so burnt to powder if then it be dissolved in Oyl and the place therewith anointed it is of great vertue And if it be boiled in a Tin vessel with some Oyl of Roses it remedieth the Bloudy-flix and such as be troubled with Tenesmus which is a great desire in going to stool and yet can do nothing Arnoldus de Villa nova in his Breviary saith that if you take the cast skin of a Serpent Opopanax Myrrhe Galbanum Castoreum yellow Sulphur Madder Pigeons or Hawkes dung and incorporate them with the gall of a Cow they being first pulverised and the fume thereof received through a tunnel at the lower parts it bringeth forth either the dead or living birth Cardan lib. de Subtil saith that the cast skin of a Serpent burned in the full of the Moon and entring into the first degree of Aries if the ashes thereof be sprinkled on the head that thereby terrible and fearful dreams will follow And if the face be anointed or washed therewith being first laid in water that it will cause one to look very fearfully and horribly and if it be held under the tongue it will make one very wise and eloquent and if it be kept under the soals of the feet it maketh one very gracious among Princes Magistrates and Great men And another saith that this cast off skin being pulverised when the Moon is in her increase and in the first degree of Aries if the powder thereof be set on the table in a wooden or metalline dish if any poyson be therein it will be dispersed and do no hurt and yet the powder will remain safe and whole and if given to a Leprous person his disease will spread no further And if you put a little of this powder into any wound it will cure it within three days I have seen saith Galen Goats that have eaten of the boughs and leaves of Tamarisk and I have found them without a Spleen also I have seen other Goats that have lickt up Serpents after they had cast their skin and I have proved that after that they have grown very white and to have kept their young years a great while so that it was long before they waxed old Of the way to drive away Serpents Of their poyson and bitings A certain and sure way to cure those who either have been poysoned invenomed or bitten by them TO expell and drive farre away any venomous Creatures we use to make fumigations of the root of Lillies Harts-horn and the horns and hoofs of such beasts as be cloven footed likewise of Bay-leaves and berries Calamint Water-cresses and the ashes of the Pine-tree The leaves of Vitex Bitumen Castoreum Melanthium Goats-horns
from them some gummy and clammy matter their Dukes and Princes being at home not standing still but setling themselves to their businesse or trade and helping to hatch up their young they are suddenly choked with the fume of Brimstone Garlick the branches of Coleworts or other pot-herbs or else by breaking down and overthrowing their combes they dye through famine When you are minded to defend the Bees from the invasion and spoil of Wasps you must set a pot with some pieces of flesh in it neer the Hive and when the Wasps in hope of some prey are entered suddenly clap over the cover and so destroy them or else by pouring in some hot water at the top you may scald them all to death in the pot In like sort some do gently breath upon Raisins Fruits Sugar Honey Oyl by which either the Wasps are chased away or by tasting the Oyl do die And again some do mix corrosives with Honey as for example Sublimate Vitriol Auripigmentum c. that they by taking this venomous or poyson infected drink may suffer condign punishment for their intemperate and insatiable gluttony Of the stinging of Wasps there do proceed divers and sundry accidents passions and effects as pain disquieting vexation swelling rednesse heat sweatings disposition or will to vomit loathing and abhorring of all things exceeding thirstinesse and now and then fainting or swounding especially when after the manner of venomous creatures they have infected their stings either by tasting the flesh of some Serpents or by gathering their food from venomous plants I will now set before your eyes and ears one late and memorable example of the danger that is in Wasps of one Allens wife dwelling not many years since at Lowick in Northamptonshire which poor woman resorting after her usual manner in the heat of the Summer to Drayton the Lord Mordams house being extreamly thirsty and impatient of delay finding by chance a black Jack or Tankard on the Table in the Hall she very inconsiderately and rashly set it to her mouth never suspecting or looking what might be in it and suddenly a Wasp in her greedinesse passed down with the drink and stinging her there immediately came a great tumor in her throat with a rednesse puffing and swelling of all the parts adjacent so that her breath being intercepted the miserable wretch whirling herself twice or thrice round as though she had had some Virtiginy in her brath presently fell down and dyed And this is known for a truth not only to me but to most of the Inhabitants thereabouts being as yet fresh in their memories and therefore their authorities as I take it is unreproveable Now for fear lest I should lose my self in this troublesome and vast Ocean of Natures admirable fabricature I will now discourse of such medicinal means as will defend from their furious malice The vertue of Mallows and of Althea called Marsh-mallow is notable against the prickings of Wasps For the softest and most emollient herb is applyed as a contrary to a warlike and hurtful creature whose juyce being anointed with Oyl either abateth the rage of Wasps or so blunteth and dulleth their sting that the pain is not very sharp or biting Pliny lib. 21. copit 171. And of the same minde is Avicen Wasps saith he will not come near any Man if he be anointed with Oyl and the juyce of Mallows For as a soft answer doth frangere iram and as the Grecians have a saying Edus Megiston estin orges pharmakon logos So also in natural Philosophy we see that hard things are quailed and their edge even taken off with soft and suppling as Iron with a fine small and soft feather the Adamant stone with bloud and the sting of Wasps Hornets and Bees with Oyl and Mallows What is softer then a Caterpiller and yet if Aetius credit be of sufficience the same being beaten with Oyl and anointed upon any part preserveth the same from the wounds and stings of Wasps And of the same vertue is the herb called Balm being stamped and mixed with Oyl The same symptomes or accidents do follow the stinging of Wasps as of Bees but far more painful and of longer continuance to wit rednesse and intolerable pain and Apostumes And if any be strucken of the Orange or yellow coloured Wasps especially in a sinewy or some sensible part there will follow a Convulsion weaknesse of the knees swounding yea and sometimes death as before I have touched Against the stinging of Wasps divers medicines are prescribed by Physitians but I will speak of such only as I have made proof of and such as are confirmed by long experience Gilbert the Englishman saith that Wasps being bruised and applyed to the place affected do cure their own wounds very strangely The same vertue peradventure not only the Scorpion but the greater part of Insects have if any one would make any diligent trial thereof If a man be stinged of any venomous Wasps which is easily known by the blewnesse of the place madnesse raving and fainting of the party and coldnesse of the hands and feet after you have given him inwardly some Alexipharmacal medicine the place agrieved must be lanched or rather opened with a Cautery so being thus enlarged and opened the venom must be well sucked out and the paring or shaving of that earth wherein the Wasps build their nests must be wrought and kneaded with Vinegar and so applyed like a Cataplasm A plaister also made of Willow-leaves Mallows and the combe of Wasps is very medicinable for the same as by the counsel of Haly Abbas I have experimented The English Northern men do prepare most excellent emplaister worth gold against all stings of Wasps only of that earth whereof their Ovens are made having Vinegar and the heads of Flyes commixed therewith Let the place be very well rubbed with the juyce of Citrals and withall let the party that is pained drink of the seed of Marjoram beaten to powder the quantity of two drams or thus Take of the juyce of Marjoram two ounces of Bole Armony two drams with the juyce of unripe Grapes so much as is sufficient make an emplaister Another Anoint the place with the juyce of Purcelane Beets or sweet Wine and Oyl of Roses or with Cows bloud or with the seeds of the Spirting or wilde Cucumber called Noliâ—me tangere beaten with some Wine Thus far Galen Barley Meal wrought up with Vinegar and the Milk or juyce of a Fig-tree Brine or Sea-water are excellent for these griess as Dioscorides lib. 8 cap. 20. writeth if the wound be often fomented bathed or soaked with any of them To drink give two drams of the young and tender leaves of Bays with harsh Wine and if the part affected be only anointed with any of these they are much available In like sort the decoction of Marsh-mallows drunk with Vinegar and water are much commended and outwardly salt with Calves fat Oyl of Bays
lothing or abhorring of meat with a disposition to vo-miting and often an ordinary desire to make water and to exonerate nature but all in vain He that taketh them findeth in his mouth the tast or tallage of Pitch and all these symptomes passions or effects that they work have I with much labour faithfully collected out of the sixth Book of Dioscorides and the first Chapter And out of Galen Lib. de Theriaca ad Pisonem Cap. 4. and Lib. 3. de Temperam cap. 3. And out of ancient Rhazes who practised Physick one hundred years if truth be truly related Tit. 8. chap. 17. If any one be either affected or infected with any accidents by means of Cantharides Dioscorides doth thus cure them as you may readily finde in the Book and Chapter before cited First of all he causeth them to vomit often and much and after that he prescribeth Glysters to be made for the scouring of the belly with Nitre and to preserve the bladder inwardly to take Milk and Psyllum and then he would have the matter of Glysters to be somewhat different from those which were taken in the beginning as namely to be made of Barley water Marsh-mallows the white of an Egge the Musciling of Line-seeds Water of Rice the decoction of Fenugreek Hydromel fat Broaths Oyl of Almonds the fat of a Goose and the yelks of Egges And inwardly to take at the mouth he biddeth them to use Cows milk Hydromel the grains or fruit of the Pitch-tree both the greater and the lesser sort Wine sod to the half Ducks fat a decoction with some diuretical seeds namely with the four greater cold seeds which are Cucumbers Gourds Citrals and Melons and likewise some decoction made of Figs with syrup of Violets Oyl of Quinces is highly commended of some as a proper and special Antidote in this case and so is Oyl of Lillies and Terra Samia Rhazes counsel is after the taking of some Glysters made of any fat broaths to make an injection into the yard with Oyl of Roses and the sick person to sit in a warm Bath Tit. 8. Chap. 17. The Writers and Authors of Physick and Philosophy cannot agree in what part of the Cantharides their poyson chiefly lurketh for some will have it to be principally in the head and feet and others again will none of that And yet they all agree upon this point that in what part of the body soever their poyson is seated that their wings are a soveraign remedy and preservative and if they be wanting that their poyson is deadly so that although they be never so poysonous yet have they their own remedy which in themselves they contain and carry about Thus saith Pliny in his 11. Book and 35. chapter And peradventure for the same cause Galen in his eleventh Book which he intituled De Simplie Medicament facultatibus adviseth us expresly and learnedly that Cantharides should be taken whole as they are and so to be used either for inward or outward uses For why it is far better even in the outward application of them that they should more gently and slowly corrode gnaw or fret asunder and that their burning vertue and quality should be a little corrected and weakened then to perform their full effect to the great danger of the patient and many times to his utter undoing and destruction Therefore they are clean out of the way who when they would use them for any inward cause do cast away their wings and feet whereas indeed they ought to take all of them not rejecting any one part of them For being given whole they need not so much any correctives to bridle and lessen their powerful operation in regard of their wings and feet the proper resisters and expellers of their own or other poyson The fafest course is to use all and every part of them without exception unlesse you would have them to corrode fret inflame or burn any part Lycus Neapolitanus is of opinion that Purcelane is their proper counter-poyson which vertue Pliny in his twentyeth Book Chap. 13. ascribeth to the herb called wilde Basil who also many ways commendeth Acetum Scyliticum Oleum Oenanthium Cows milk and brethes made of Goats flesh for these intentions in his 23. Book Chapter the second and fourth and likewise in his 28. Book and tenth Chapter And for our History of Cantharides let this for this time suffice which I much wonder that the famous learned Gesner hath in such deep silence passed over never so much as mentioning them whereof notwithstanding so many Authors both of the Ancients and Neotericks do so much ring Many moe authorities could I have alleadged concerning this my discourse of Cantharides but that I suppose it a labour as endlesse in toyl as needlesse in use the one savouring of too much curiosity the other of a frivolous affectation so that I hope even amongst the whole College of Physitians wheresoever in England if their ears be not too dainty to finde some few grains of their good words and such curteous construction as that I may neither be charged with partiality of concealing where it is meet I should be mute nor be suspected of unsufficiency for not pursuing where I can finde no good footing Of CATERPILLERS or PALMER-WORMS called of some Cankers NOw I am come to speak of Caterpillers sometimes the destroyers and wasters of Egypt as well in regard of the great difference that is found in their several sorts as for their great dignity and use wherein some of them are most notable and excellent Some think that Eruca which is Englished a Caterpiller hath his derivation ab erodendo which is not altogether improbable For they gnaw off and consume by eating both leaves boughs and flowers yea and some fruits also as I have often seen in Peaches Ovidius the famous Poet stileth them by the name of Tineae agrestes Quaeque solent canis frondes intexere filis Agrestes Tineae res observata colonis Feraci mutant cum papilione figuram In English thus And those wilde Mothes by husbandmen observed Which fold themselves in hoary springing leaves Gainst force of famine and storm to be preserved A shape from fruitful Butterflies receives The Grecians call a Caterpiller Kampe by reason of his crooked winding or bending pace in waving sort whereby in creeping they bow wry and lift up themselves Of the Hebrews it is termed Gbazain because it sheareth pilleth and devoureth the fruits of the earth as Kimhi upon the first of Joel writeth The Italians call it Rugaverme and Brucho for so Marcellus Virgilius upon Dioscorides saith expresly that in his time all the people of Italy named it Erucae Bruchi The Spaniards term it Oruga The Frenchmen Chenille and Chattepeleuse Of the English they are commonly called Caterpillers of what kinde soever they be of But the English Northern men call the hairy Caterpillers Oubuts and the Southern men usually term them Palmer-worms Of the Polonians it is
bring they to the ground Flowing with Natures shameful filthy bloud Her bosome open and her hair untrimmed falling Like one ore'prest with grief forgetting good Three times about the plots and hedges walking Which done a wonder t is for to be told As rain drops from the trees ripe Apples fall Walnuts out of husks so cast you may behold These Worms from trees all torn and cannot crall Theophrastus saith that Caterpillers will touch no plants which are moistened or besprinckled with Wine They will die if they take the fume or be any way smoaked with the herb Psora Aetius Whereby it is apparent saith Silvius that the herb commonly termed Scabious is not the true Psora Caterpillers that live and feed on Coleworts if they be but touched with that kinde of Worm which is found in the Fullers Teasel they die Pliny All to besprinkle a Colewort whilest it hath but only three leaves with Nitre or with saltish and brinish earth and by means of the saltnesse the Caterpillers will be quite driven away Geopon Palladius in this case preferreth the ashes of Fig-leaves The Sea-onion called Squilla being sown or hanged up in Gardens hindereth the breeding of Caterpillers Othersome in the most places of their Gardens and round about them sow and set Mints the pulse called Orobos which is somewhat like Vetches and some Wormwood or at least-wise hang them in bunches in divers places of the same to expell this kinde of noysome creature Some very advisedly take dry leaves and stalks of Garlick and with the same do smoke and perfume their whole Garden so that by this way the smoke being conveyed into all places thereof the Caterpillers will fall down dead as Palladius hath written in whose writings any man may read of plenty of such Antidotes and Alexipharmical medicines as may serve to destroy Caterpillers Now will I speak of their use in Physick and in the Common-wealth The web of Caterpillers being taken inwardly stayeth womens fluxes as Matthiolus saith Being likewise burnt and put into the nostrils it stancheth bleeding at the nose The Caterpillers that are found amongst the herbs called Spurges of all sorts by the judgement of Hippocrates are notable for purulent and mattery Wombs especially if they be first dryed in the Sun with a double quantity of Earth-worms and a little Aniseed finely powdered and so all of them to be relented and taken in some excellent White-wine But in case they feel any heavinesse or aking in the belly after the taking of this medicine then it were good to drink a little Mulse thereupon This saith Hippocrates in his Book De Superfoetat Dioscorides in his first Book and 90. chapter giveth in drink those common Caterpillers that live in companies together against the disease called the Squinsie But unlesse by some hid and secret property they do good in this grief being received inwardly it were needful in regard of their manifest venomous nature that they were utterly rejected and contemned Nicander useth them to provoke sleep for thus he writeth Ei de suge tripsas oligo en hammati kampen Kepeien drosoeastan epi chloreida noto c. Which Hieremias Martius hath thus translated Quod si rodentes olus frendentia vermes Lueva quibus virides depingunt terga colores In medio sacra de Palladis arbore succo Triveris hincque tuum colleveris undique corpus Tuta dabis dulci securus membra quieti Which may be Englished thus With herb-eating or green-leaf-gnawing Worms Whose backs imprinted are with colours lively green All bruised mixed with juyce from Pallas tree that runs Anointed body brought to sound sleep is often seen There are to be seen in divers thorny prickly sharp and rough herbs as for example in Nettle sundry hairy or lanuginous Caterpillers which being tyed or hanged about some part of the body do by and by as the report goeth heal those Infants which have any stopping of the meats passage when they cannot swallow A Caterpiller breeding in Pot-herbs being first bruised and then anointed upon any venomous bitings of Serpents is of great efficacy and if you rub a naughty or a rotten tooth with the Colewort-caterpillers and that often within a few days following the tooth will fall out of his own accord Avicenna Caterpillers mixt with Oyl do drive away Serpents Dioscorides If a man anoint his hands or any other part with Oyl it will cause that he shall receive no hurt by the stinging of Bees Wasps or Hornets as Aetius saith Pliny citeth many fond and superstitious fained matters and lying tales devised by those who in his time were called Magi Soothsayers or Diviners concerning the admirable vertues of Caterpillers All which because I see them hissed out of the School of Divinity and that in heart secretly I have condemned them I will at this time let them passe without any further mention They are also a very good meat to divers Birds and Fowls which are so needful for the use benefit and food of mankinde as to Starlings Peacocks Hens Thrushes Daws or Choughes and to sundry fishes likewise as to the Tench Pike or Pikerel and to a certain Sea-fish called a Scorpion also to the Trout and some others who are easily deceived with a Caterpillered hook Which kind of fishing fraud if you would better be instructed in I must refer you to Tarentinus in his Geoponicks and to a little Book dedicated to Robert Dudley late Earl of Leicester written by Master Samuel Vicar of Godmanobester in Huntingtonshire It is not to be passed over in silence how that not many years since there came infinite swarms of Caterpillers out of Thracia into Polonia Hungaria and beyond the limits of Germany which did not only devour the fruits of trees but whatsoever was green either in the medows and tilled fields besides the Vines which was taken for an evident prognostick and sign as many divined of some great Turkish Army to come swarming into those parts neither herein did this their ghessing and mistrust deceive them for the next year following was the siedge of Vienna in Austria the wasting spoyling and over-running of Hungaria and the deadly English-sweating could not contain it self in an Island but must spread it self among them of the Continent whereupon ensued the destruction of many thousands of people before any remedy could be found out In the year of grace 1573. there rushed infinite swarms of Caterpillers into Italy where they spoyled and made havock of all green buds and grasse growing upon the face of the earth so that with their unquenchable and insatiate voracity they left nothing but the bare roots of trees and plants and this hapned chiefly about Mantua and Brixia And upon the neck of this followed a terrible and fearful pestilence of which there dyed about 50. thousand persons Also in the year of our Lord GOD 1570. there were two great and sudden swarms of Caterpillers that came rushing into Italy in the space of one
it among the venomous for if it chance to bite any man if the wounded man falleth into a Fever before he make water he dyeth for it but if he first make water the beast dyeth and the man escapeth It is thought that it containeth a kinde of natural magick witch-craft or sorcery and therefore they say it hath a stupifying power changing the minde from love to hatred and from hatred to love again The powder of this Serpent drunk in Wine if it stir venereous lust it hurteth the nerves and sinews There be certain magical devises raised out of this Serpent which are not worth the writing as not having in them any dram of wit learning or truth and therefore I will not trouble the Reader with them but follow on the conclusion of this Crocodiles story in the Narration of the medicinal vertues which are far moe and more operative then those in the former Crocodile for I think Almighty GOD blesseth meeknesse and innocency with excesse of grace in men and beasts as may be seen in these two kindes of Crocodiles the dung and excrement of the one being more worth then the body of the other through harmlesse innocency The body of this Serpent to be dryed after it hath lyen long in Salt and to be preserved in Nose-wort as Ruellius and Marcellus write but truth is there is no need of Salt where Nosewort is applyed because the Acrimony of this hearb doth easily dry up the moisture of this beast keeping Worms from breeding in it With the powder thus prepared venereous men stir up their lusts Mithridate is called Diascncu because it is compounded of the Scink or Crocodile of the earth and it containeth in it a most noble Antidote against all poysons Galen had an Antidote against Scorpions which among other things containeth in it the flesh of a Crocodile of the earth wherewithall he cured all them that had been stung with Scorpions in Lybia It is also good against the bitings of mad beasts and pleurisies against poysoned Honey or the crudity and loathing that cometh in the stomack by eating of sound Honey It is profitable against empoysoned Arrows or Darts being taken immediately before or after the wound as Apelles hath observed Screpio did make a medicine compounded of the dung of this Crocodile and applyed the same against the Falling-sicknesse Of the body of this Scink except the head and feet being sod or rosted and eaten by them that have the Sc 〈…〉 and old cough especially children or the pain of the loins giveth them much ease They are also mixed with medicines against the pain of the feet as Galen did for Amarantus the Grammarian They are also good in medicine against the coldnesse of the sinews This beast is very hot and therefore increaseth the seed of man and provoketh lust and for this purpose the greatest and fattest and such a one as is taken in the Spring time when they burn in lust for copulation is preferred But this is not to be meant of the fleshy parts but only of those parts that are about the reins if a man drink thereof the weight of a groat in Wine afterwards for the alaying of the heat thereof the Physitians do prescribe a decoction of Lentiles with Honey and the seed of Lettice drunk in Water The snout of this Crocodile with the feet drunk in white Wine hath the same operation but we have shewed already that these parts are to be cut off and thrown away because if there be any venom in the beast it lyeth in them A perfume being made of the body and intrails of this Crocodile under the womb of a woman labouring with childe is thought to yeeld much help for her safe speedy and easie travail or flocks of Wool perfumed therewith and laid to her belly But it is the part of good Physitians to be wary in giving of medicines for stirring up of lust in any except in marryed persons and then also when they are young to procure a lawful issue and posterity into the world 〈◊〉 otherwise they shall both decay the body for all violent helps of carnal copulation do in the end prove detriments to nature if they continue any time and also they are hurtful to the Soul when not only the unnatural desire of lust but also the intemperate pleasure of sin is increased thereby and that is a miserable cure which killeth the Soul to help one part of the body Besides all kindes of medicines for this purpose amongst which this Crocodile is the chief have their peculiar venom and when they are ministred either they have no effect at all through age or overmuch impotency or else they work too violently which is most dangerous or some one hurt or other followeth the poyson and so I will leave the prosecution of this part The dust of the skin of this Crocodile being anointed with Vinegar or Oyl upon any part or member which is to be cut off taketh away the sense of pain in the time of execution The bloud is good for the eyes and taketh away the filthy skin of the body with the spots and burls in the face restoring the first true native and lively colour The fat taketh away the pain in the reins and causeth a distillation of the seed of man yet this fat touching the hair of a man maketh it to fall off and a man anointed herewith is safe from the annoyance of Crocodiles although they play with him It also cureth the bitings of Crocodiles the instillation of this Crocodile folded up in the Wooll of a black Sheep of the first birth and wherein is no other colour hath power to drive a quartane Ague And Rhasis saith that it being hung over the head of a woman in travail keepeth her from delivery In the gall of this Serpent there is a power against the falling off of the hair especially if the medicine be made of the roots of Beets to neese withall and besides the eyes being anointed therewith and with Honey there is nothing more profitable against suffusions The stones and reins have power to provoke generation and Aetius prescribeth an Antidote to be made of the tail of this beast against the Gout Great is the vertue of the dung or excrement of this Serpent if the same could be easily found but while it is sought for it loseth the vertue It is called Crocodillia and is profitable to give a good colour to womens faces that is the best which is whitest short and not heavy feeling like leaven betwixt the fingers that is smelling somewhat sharp like leaven It is adulterated with meal chalk white-earth or painting but is is discerned by the heavinesse The reason of the vertue of this is because it feedeth upon the sweetest and best smelling herbs whereby it cometh to passe that it doth not only smell fragrantly but also contain in it many excellent vertues First therefore it is good for the comelinesse of the
wherein they say is the picture of a Toad with her legs spread before and behinde And it is further affirmed that if both these stones be held in ones hand in the presence of poyson it will burn him The probation of this stone is by laying of it to a live Toad and if she lift up her head against it it is good but if she run away from it it is a counterfeit Geor. Agricola calleth the greater kinde of these stones Brontia and the lesser and smoother sort of stones Ceraunie although some contrary this opinion saying that these stones Brantia and Ceraunia are bred on the earth by thundering and lightning Whereas it is said before that the generation of this stone in the Toad proceedeth of cold that is utterly unpossible for it is described to be so solid and firm as nothing can be more hard and therefore I cannot assent unto that opinion for unto hard and solid things is required abundance of heat and again it is unlikely that whatsoever this Toad-stone be that there should be any store of them in the world as are every where visible if they were to be taken out of the Toads alive and therefore I rather agree with Salveldensis a Spaniard who thinketh that it is begotten by a certain viscous spume breathed out upon the head of some Toad by her fellows in the Spring time This stone is that which in ancient time was called Batrachites and they attribute unto it a vertue besides the former namely for the breaking of the stone in the Bladder and against the Falling-sicknesse And they further write that it is a discoverer of present poyson for in the presence of poyson it will change the colour And this is the substance of that which is written about this stone Now for my part I dare not conclude either with it or against it for Hermolaus Massarius Albertus Sylvaticus and others are directly for this stone ingendered in the brain or head of the Toad on the other side Cardan and Cesner confesse such a stone by name and nature but they make doubt of the generation of it as others have delivered and therefore they being in sundry opinions the hearing whereof might confound the Reader I will refer him for his satisfaction unto a Toad which he may easily every day kill For although when the Toad is dead the vertue thereof be lost which consisted in the eye or blew spot in the middle yet the substance remaineth and if the stone be found there in substance then is the question at an end but if it be not then must the generation of it be sought for in some other place Thus leaving the stone of the Toad we must proceed to the other parts of the story and first of all their place of habitation which for them of the water is neer the water-side and for them of the earth in bushes hedges rocks and holes of the earth never coming abroad while the Sun shineth for they hate the Sun-shine and their nature cannot endure it for which cause they keep close in their holes in the day time and in the night they come abroad Yet sometimes in rainy weather and in solitary places they come abroad in the day time All the Winter time they live under the earth feeding upon earth herbs and worms and it is said they eat earth by measure for they eat so much every day as they can gripe in their fore-foot as it were sizing themselves lest the whole earth should not serve them till the Spring Resembling herein great rich covetous men who ever spare to spend for fear they shall want before they die And for this cause in ancient time the wise Painters of Germany did picture a woman sitting upon a Toad to signifie covetousnesse They also love to eat Sage and yet the root of Sage is to them deadly poyson They destroy Bees without all danger to themselves for they will creep to the holes of their Hives and there blow in upon the Bees by which breath they draw them out of the Hive and so destroy them as they come out for this cause also at the Water-side they lie in wait to catch them When they come to drink in the day time they see little or nothing but in the night time they see perfectly and therefore they come then abroad About their generation there are many worthy observations in nature sometimes they are bred out of the putrefaction and corruption of the earth it hath also been seen that out of the ashes of a Toad burnt not only one but many Toads have been regenerated the year following In the New-world there is a Province called Dariene the air whereof is wonderful unwholesome because all the Countrey standeth upon rotten marishes It is there observed that when the slaves or servants water the pavements of the dores from the drops of water which fall on the right hand are instantly many Toads ingendered as in other places such drops of water are turned into Gnats It hath also been seen that women conceiving with childe have likewise conceived at the same time a Frog or a Toad or a Lizard and therefore Platearius saith that those things which are medicines to provoke the menstruous course of women do also bring forth the Secondines And some have called Bufonem fratrem Salernitanorum lacertam fratrem Lombardorum that is a Toad the Brother of the Salernitâ—ns and the Lizard the Brother of the Lombards for it hath been seen that a woman of Salernum hath at one time brought forth a Boy and a Toad and therefore he calleth the Toad his Brother so likewise a woman of Lombardy a Lizard and therefove he calleth the Lizard the Lombards Brother And for this cause the women of those Countries at such time as their childe beginneth to quicken in their womb do drink the juyce of Parsley and Leeks to kill such conceptions if any be There was a woman newly marryed and when in the opinion of all she was with childe in stead of a childe she brought forth four little living creatures like Frogs yet she remained in good health but a little while after she felt some pain about the rim of her belly which afterward was eased by applying a few remedies Also there was another woman which together with a Man-childe in her Secondines did bring forth such another Beast and after that a Merchants wife did the like in Aneonitum But what should be the reason of these so strange and unnatural conceptions I will not take upon me to decide in nature lest the Omnipotent hand of God should be wronged and his most secret and just counsel presumptuously judged and called into question This we know that it was prophesied in the Revelation that Frogs and Locusts should come out of the Whore of Babylon and the bottomlesse pit and therefore seeing the seat of the Whore of Babylon is in Italy it may be that God would have manifested
the depravation of Christian Religion beginning among the Italians and there continued in the conjoyned birth of Men and Serpents for surely none but Devils incarnate or men conceived of Serpents brood would so stiffely stand in Romish error as the Italians do and therefore they seem to be more addicted to the errors of their Fathers which they say is the Religion wherein they were born then unto the truth of Jesus Christ which doth unanswerably detect the pride and vanity of the Romish faith But to leave speaking of the conception of Toads in Women we will proceed further unto their generation in the stomachs and bellies of men whereof there may more easily a reason be given then of the former Now although that in the earth Toads are generated of the putrefied earth and waters yet such a generation cannot be in the body of man for although there be much putrefaction in us yet not so much to ingender bones and other organes such as are in Toads as for Worms they are all flesh and may more easily be conceived of the putrefaction in our stomachs But then you will say how comes it to passe that in mens stomachs there are found Frogs and Toads I answer that this evill hapneth unto such men as drink water for by drinking of water a Toads egge may easily slip into the stomach and there being of a viscous nature cleaveth fast to the rough parts of the ventricle and it being of a contrary nature to man can never be digested or avoided and for that cause the venom that is in it never goeth out of the Egge either in operation or in substance to poyson the other parts of the body but there remaineth until the Egge be formed into a Toad without doing further harm and from hence it cometh that Toads are bred in the bodies of men where they may as well live without air as they do in the midst of trees and rocks and yet afterwards these Toads do kill the bodies they are bred in For the venom is so tempered that at last it worketh when it is come to ripenesse even as we see it is almost an usual thing to take a poyson whose operation shall not be perceived till many days weeks or moneths after For the casting out of such a Toad bred in the body this medicine is prescribed They take a Serpent and bowel him then they cut off the head and the tail the residue of the body they likewise part into small pieces which they see the in water and take off the fat which swimmeth at the top which the sick person drinketh until by vomiting he avoid all the Toads in his stomach afterwards be must use restorative and aromatical medicines And thus much may suffice for the ordinary and extraordinary generation of Toads These Toads do not leap as Frogs do but because of their swelling bodies and short legs their pace is a soft creeping pace yet sometimes in anger they lift up themselves endevouring to do harm for great is their wrath obstinacy and desire to be revenged upon their adversaries especially the red Toad for look how much her colour inclineth to rednesse so much is her wrath and venom more pestilent If she take hold of any thing in her mouth she will never let it go till she die and many times she sendeth forth poyson out of her buttocks or backer parts wherewithal she infecteth the air for revenge of them that do anoy her and it is well observed that she knoweth the weaknesse of her teeth and therefore for her defence she first of all gathereth abundance of air into her body wherewithal she greatly swelleth and then by sighing uttereth that infected air as neer the person that offendeth her as she can and thus she worketh her revenge killing by the poyson of her breath The colour of this poyson is like milk of which I will speak afterward particularly by it self A Toad is of a most cold temperament and bad constitution of nature and it useth one certain herb wherewithal it preserveth the sight and also resisteth the poyson of Spyders whereof I have heard this credible History related from the mouth of a true honourable man and one of the most charitable Peers of England namely the good Earl of Bedford and I was requested to set it down for truth for it may be justified by many now alive that saw the same It fortuned as the said Earl travailed in Bedfordshire neer unto a Market-town called Owbourn some of his company espyed a Toad fighting with a Spyder under a hedge in a bottom by the high-way-side whereat they stood still until the Earl their Lord and Master came also to behold the same and there he saw how the Spyder still kept her standing and the Toad divers times went back from the Spyder and did eat a piece of an herb which to his judgement was like a Plantain At the last the Earl having seen the Toad do it often and still return to the combate against the Spyder he commanded one of his men to go and with his dagger to cut off that herb which he performed and brought it away Presently after the Toad returned to seek it and not finding it according to her expectation swelled and broke in pieces for having received poyson from the Spyder in the combate nature taught her the vertue of that herb to expell and drive it out but wanting the herb the poyson did instantly work and destroy her And this as I am informed was oftentimes related by the Earl of Bedford himself upon sundry occasions and therefore I am the bolder to insert it into 〈◊〉 story I do the more easily believe it because of another like story related by Erasmus in his Book of Friendship hapning likewise in England in manner as followeth There was a Monk who had in his chamber divers bundles of green rushes wherewithal he used to strow his chamber at his pleasure it hapned on a day after dinner that he fell asleep upon one of those bundles of rushes with his face upward and while he there slept a great Toad came and sate upon his lips bestriding him in such manner as his whole mouth was covered Now when his fellows saw it they were at their wits end for to pull away the Toad was an unavoidable death but to suffer her to stand still upon his mouth was a thing more cruel then death and therefore one of them espying a Spiders web in the window wherein was a great Spyder he did advise that the Monk should be carryed to that window and laid with his face upward right underneath the Spyders web which was presently accomplished And assoon as the Spyder saw her adversary the Toad she presently wove her thred and descended down upon the Toad at the first meeting whereof the Spyder wounded the Toad so that it swelled and at the second meeting it swelled more but at the third time the Spyder kild the
of their hatred are Virgins and Women whom they do not only desire to harm but also when they have harmed are never perfectly recovered And this is at all times of the day but unto men they are most dangerous in the morning fasting before they have vented their poyson and this is to be observed that their tayls are never unprovided of stings and sufficient store of venome to hurt upon all occasions The Lyon is by the Scorpion put to flight wheresoever he seeth it for he feareth it at the enemy of his life and therefore writeth S. Ambrose Exiguo Scorpionis aculeo exagitatur Leo the Lion is much moved at the small sting of a Scorpion Scorpions do also destroy other Serpents and are likewise destroyed by them There was one Cellarius a Physitian in Padua who put together into one Viall a Viper and a Scorpion where they continually fought together untill they had killed one another The Swine of Scythia which do safely eat all other kinde of Serpents and venemous beasts without all harm yet are destroyed by eating of Scorpions and so great is the poyson of the Sibarite Scorpion that the dung thereof being trode upon breedeth ulcers And as in this manner we see the virulence and naturall evill of Scorpions against other living creatures so now we are to consider the terrors of the Scorpion for God in nature hath likewise ordained some bodies whereby the Scorpion should be and is driven away scared and destroyed First of all therefore men which are the chief and head of all living Creatures do by natural instinct kill and destroy Scorpions and therefore Galen writeth thus Let us saith he kill Scorpions Spiders and Vipers not because they are evill in themselves but because it is ingrafted in us by nature to love that which is good unto us but to hate and avert from that which is evill unto us Non corsiderantes genitum ne ita sit an secus not considering whether it were so bred or not As we have shewed their generation out of putrefaction to be by heat so also is their destruction by heat for they are not able to abide the heat of the Sun and therefore although they cannot live in cold Northern Countreys but in the hotter yet in the hotter they choose shadowes holes of the earth coverture of houses and such like vile and obscure places to succour and secure themselves in It is also reported that if Scorpions do at any time behold a Stellion they stand amazed and wonderfully astonished The Viper also having killed a Scorpion becometh more venemous and the Ibis of Egypt destroyeth Scorpions There are a little kinde of Emmets called by the Arabians Gerarets which are eaters of Scorpions The quick-sighted Hawks also from whose piercing eye no Serpent can be hid when he 〈◊〉 a Scorpion he neither feareth nor spareth it It is also thought that Hares are never molested by Scorpions because if a man or beast be anoynted with the rennet of a Hare there is no Scorpion or Spider that will hurt him Wilde Goats are also said to live without fear of Scorpions even as the African Psylli of whom we have often spoken Now this vertue against Scorpions is not only in living things but also in the Plants of the earth and therefore Sestius writeth that the seed of Nose-wort burned or scorched doth drive away Serpents and resist Scorpions and so doth the root of the Mast-tree and the seed of Violets and the same vertue is ascribed to the herb Lychius which is Englished Calves-snout and also to the seed of wilde Parsnip The smell of Garlick and wilde Mints set on fire or strewed on the ground and Dittany have the same operation and above all other one of these Scorpions burned driveth away all his fellowes which are within the smell thereof and therefore this is a most usuall thing in Asia and Africk to perfume their houses with Scorpions burned and in stead thereof they make as it were little pills of Galbanum sandaracha with butter and the fat of Goats and thereof altogether make their perfume also Bettony and wilde Pellitory with Brimstone They use also to cover pans with certain things called by them Alkitran and Asa and with these they compasse the place wherein the Scorpion lodgeth and then it is found that they can never stir any more from that place And some in stead thereof powr Oyl into their holes after them for the same effect And the Husband-men of Mauritania doe tye and fasten to their bed-side sprigs of white thorn and Hasell-nuts wherewithall by a secret antipathy in nature they drive away and keep themselves safe in their beds from the annoyance of Scorpions By touching of Hen-bane they lie dead and overcome but if one touch them again with white Ellebore they revive and are released from their former stupefaction It is also said that the leaves of water-mallowes do also astonish Scorpions and so also doth the Radish-root The Sea-crab with Basil in her mouth destroyeth the Scorpion and so doth Tunicle and Mushrom of trees To conclude the spittle of a man is death unto Scorpions and therefore when a certain fellow took upon him to be a cunning Charmer and by incantation to kill a Scorpion he added to the words of his Charm a treble spitting in the mouth of the Serpent and so it dyed whereupon Welphius which was present and saw this Charmer did afterward by himself alone at home make triall of spittle without a Charm and so found that it alone killeth Scorpions especially the spittle of a man fasting or very thirsty Moreover there be certain Lands wherein no Scorpions will live as that about Clispea in Africk and the dust of the Island Gaulus neer Cercina being sprinkled upon a Scorpion doth incontinently kill it And so much also writeth Hermolaus of the Region Galatha These and such like things are observed by our painfull and industrious Ancestors about the nature of Scorpions as well that which is hurtfull unto them and they are afraid of as those to which they are enemies in nature and wound mortally when they light upon them It is remembred by Textor that Orion was slain by a Scorpion whereupon the Poets have made many tales They say that when he was grown to be a man he was a great hunter and a continuall companion of Diana who glorying much in his own strength boasted that he was able to overcome any Serpent or other wild beast whereat the Gods being angry for revenge and taking down the pride of this young man caused the earth to bring forth a Scorpion who killed Orion Whereat Diana was very sorry and therefore in lamentation of her champion and for the good deeds he had done unto her translated him into heaven close by the constellation of the Bull. Lucan on the other side saith that Diana sent this Scorpion to kill him envying
my path again A man may finde a great sort both of these and the like remedies both in Pliny Dioscorides and other concerning the hurts of Spiders but I think I have been a little too redious and you may imagine that I do nothing but Ta arachina hyphainein Aranearum telas texere That is in a frivolous matter and of small moment spend infinite and curious labour so that I had more need to crave pardon for my long discourse about this subject wherein though many things may want to the satisfaction of an afflicted and searching head yet I am sure here is enough to warrant the discharge of my good will and to repell the censure of the scrupulous Nunc imus ad illam Artificem mens nostra cui est conformis Arachnem Quae medio tenerae residens in stamine telae Qua serit eâ—rus atrox trepidot volitantibus auris Tangitur utque sono vagus illi byssus ab aestro In English thus Vnto Arachne skilfull Mistresse let us come To whom conformed seems the minde of man She sits in middest of web her tender feet upon Whiles she is â—ost with East-winde now and than She trembleth at the noyse of ratling winds As when the humming Flie hard wagging finds Of the Tame or House SPIDER ARistotle that diligent searcher and seeker out of Nature and naturall causes termeth this kinde of Spider a very gallant and excellent wise creature King Salomon himself at whose high wisdome all succeeding ages have and will admire amongst those four small Creatures which in wisdom do out-strip the greatest Philosophers reckoneth the Spider for one dwelling as he saith in Kings Courts and there devising and weaving his inimitable web The Poets faign that the Spider called Arachne was in times past a Mayden of Lydia who being instructed of Minerva in the cunning skill of Embroydery and spinning grew therein so excellent and took such a pride in the same for you must remember she was a woman that she stifly denyed facing it out in braving wise that Minerva was never her Instructer and so arrogant presumptuous she was as that she feared not to challenge her Mistresse Goddesse to work with her if she durst for her ears enter the list in all manner of Embroydery Tapestry-works and the like At which Mistresse Minerva being netled and taking the matter in dudgeon thus to be provoked and withall reprehending the mayd very sharply for her sawcinesse in a pelting chase she brake to pieces the wenches imagery work that was so curiously woven and so full of variety with her shittle The Mayd hereat being fore grleved half in despair not knowing what to doe yeelding to passion would needs hang her self But Minerva taking compassion upon her would not have her die forth with but transformed her into a Spider hanging by a fine small thred or line Atque ita vive quidem pende tamen improba dixit Lexque eadem poenae no â—is secura â—ututi Dicta tuo generi serisque 〈…〉 epolibus esto In English thus So live indeed yet hang thou womanvile She said and let the self same law of punishment Be unto thee and all thy ofspring while All kindred lasts shall not futures thee content If any be desirous to know more of this fable let him read the famous Poet Ovid who hath excellently written thereof in the sixth book of his Metamorphosis although somewhat differing from this of Pliny The Grecians besides do write as Caelius Rodoginus in his 7. book Lectionum Antiq. Chap. 16. affirmeth how that there was in the Countrey of Attica a certain man called Phalanx who had also a Sister named Arachne and when Phalanx had perfectly learned of Minerva the Military Science and all other warlike exercises and offices that belong to a Souldier and that she had likewise instructed his Sister Arachne in weaving spinning and needle-work they concluded a match between themselves but the Goddesse being much displeased with such a shamefull and incestuous marriage marring their fashion she disfigured them both into the number of creeping Creatures laying this as a just punishment upon them to be destroyed of their own young ones But it is at every mans choice to interpret these to be either fables and Canterbury tales or true historicall narrations yet most are of this minde that Arachne first invented spinning of linnen weaving and working with the needle which this mayd of Lydia first learned from the Spiders taking her first Samplers and patterns from them for imitation which no man ought to think to be strange sith the craft of playstering or working things in earth and the Art of curing the eyes was first taken from the Swallowes The Eagles have taught us Architecture and men first received the light of Phlebotomie or letting of bloud from the Hippopotamus which is a beast living in the River of Nilus having feet like an Oxe and his back and mane like a Horse with a winding tayl and tusked like a Boar. The bird of Egypt called Ibis first gave knowledge to Physitians how to use the Glyster yea Dogs Goats Harts Storks Swallowes and Weasels have taught men many medicines for many diseases To begin therefore to make an enumeration of their prayses I will declare unto you the rich vertues and externall goods of the body fortune and minde And first to begin with the good gifts of their bodies If you will weigh and consider the matter and substance of a Spiders body you shall finde it to be light partaking much of fire and ayr being two of the most noble and effectuall elements in operation and having but little earthy dragginesse and drossy refuse If you behold their figure they have either a Sphaericall and heavenly or at least wise an Ovall form which is next to the Sphaericall as being the perfectest of all other Besides their substance is thin fine glistering and subtile yea although they seem now and then to be fatted up with plenty of meat that they grow as big in bulk as a Walnut and if the learned Cardan may be credited they grow otherwhiles as great as a Sparrow yet for all that if you cast your eye on them against the light hanging in their web she glittereth and shineth on all parts like unto the Chrysolite which is a kinde of precious stone shining with a golden colour quite thorow causing a pleasant reflexion to the eyes and piercing them with singular delight The colour of a Spider is somewhat pale such as Ovid a scribeth to Lovers and when she hangeth aloft in her web with her legs wide and large spread abroad she perfectly and lively expresseth the shape and proportion of a painted Starre as if nature had intended to give and bestow on her not onely the resemblance and counterfeit similitude of heaven but also the very lustre of the Starres themselves The skin of a Spider is so soft smooth exquisite pure clean and neat that it farre surpasseth by many degrees
Roses and with some wooll dipped in the same liquor apply it to the ear Sorastus in his Book peri Dakeon writeth how that the Spider which is called Cranocalaptes being stifled or choked in Oyl is a very present help against any poison taken inwardly into the body as the Scholiast of Nicander reporteth There be some that catch a Spider in the left hand and beat and stamp it with the Oyl of Roses putting some of it into the ear on the same side the tooth aketh and as Pliny telleth us it doth exceeding much good Spiders applyed and laid upon their own bitings or taken inwardly into the body do heal and help those hurts themselves procured What should I talke of the white spots of the eyes a most dangerous grief and yet are they clean taken away with very small labour if so be one take the legs especially of those Spiders which are of the whiter sort and stamping them together with Oyl do make an Ointment for the eys Pliny The moist juyce that is squeesed out of a house Spider being tempered with Oyl of Roses or one dram of Saffron and a drop or two thereof dropped into the eyes cureth the dropping or watering of them by means of a rhume issuing out thereat or else the moisture of a Spider or his urine being taken by themselves laying a little wooll on the top of the part affected worketh the same effect whereby you may well understand that there is nothing in a Spider so vile homely or sordidous that doth not some good and serveth to some end Against the suffocation of the belly Aetius doth counsel to apply a Cerote to the navel made of Spiders and saith that he hath found it to prevail much in this kinde of passion Pliny saith but he yeeldeth no reason for it that Spiders help the pain and swelling of the Spleen He writeth also further that if a man catch a Spider as she is gliding and descending downwards by her thread and so being crushed in the hand and then applyed to the navel that the belly wil be provoked to the stool but being taken as she is ascending and applyed after the same former manner that any loosenesse or flux is stayed and restrained thereby The same Pliny also writeth that if a man take a Spider and lay it upon a Fellon provided that the sick patient may not know so much that within the space only of three days that terrible and painful grief will be clean taken away And besides he affirmeth that if the head and feet of a Spider be cast away and the rest of the body rubbed and bruised that it will throughly remedy the swelling in the fundament proceeding of inflamation If any be vexed with store of Lice and do use a suffumigation made only with Spiders it will cause them all to fall and come away neither will there afterwards any moe breed in that place The fat of a Goose tempered and mixed with a Spider and Oyl of Roses together being used as an Ointment upon the breasts preserveth them safely as that no milk will coagulate or curdle in them after any birth Anonymus Yea that same knotty scourge of rich men and the scorn of Physitians I mean the Gowt which as some learned men hold can by no means be remedied yet feeleth mitigation and diminution of pain and curation also only by the presence of a Spider if it be taken alive and her hinder-legs cut off and afterward inclosed in a purse made of the hide of a Stag. Moreover we see which all other medicines can never do that all they are freed for the most part both from the Gowt in the legs and hands where the Spiders are most found and where they are most busie in working and framing their ingenious devised webs Doubtlesse this is a rare miracle of nature and a wonderful vertue that is in this contemptible little creature or rather esteemed to be so vile abject and of no estimation Rich men were happy indeed if they knew how to make use of their own good Antonius Pius was wont to say that the sharp words witty sayings quirks and subtilties of Sophisters were like unto Spiders webs that contain in them much cunning Art and artificial conceit but had little other good besides If any one be newly and dangerously wounded and that the miserable party feareth a bleeding to death what is a more noble medicine or more ready at hand then a thick Spiders web to binde hard upon the wound to stay the inordinate effusion of bloud Questionlesse if we were as diligent and greedy to search out the true properties and vertues of our own domestical remedies which we would buy of others so dearly we would not enforce our selves with such eager pursuit after those of forain Countries as though things fetcht far off were better then our own neer at hand or as though nothing were good and wholesome unlesse it came from Egypt Arabia or India Surely unlesse there were some wilde worm in our brains or that we were bewitched and possessed with some fury we would not so far be in love with forein wares or be so much besotted as to seek for greedy new physick and Physical means considering that one poor Spiders web will do more good for the stanching of bloud the curation of ulcers the hindering of fanies slime or slough to grow in any sore to abate and quench any inflamations to conglutinate and consolidate wounds more then a Cart-load of Bole fetcht out of Armenia Sarcocolla Sandaracha or that earth which is so much nobilitated by the impresse of a seal and therefore called Terra Sigillata the clay of Samos the dirt of Germany or the loam of Lemnos For a cobweb adstringeth refrigerateth soldereth joyneth and closeth up wounds not suffering any rotten or filthy matter to remain long in them And in regard of these excellent vertues and qualities it quickly cureth bleeding at the nose the Haemorrhoids and other Bloudy-fluxes whether of the opening of the mouths of the veins their opertions breakings or any other bloudy evacuation that too much aboundeth being either given by it self alone in some Wine either inwardly or outwardly or commixed with the Bloud-stone Crocus Martis and other the like remedies fit for the same intentions The cobweb is also an ingredient into an unguent which is made by Physitians against the disease called Serpego and being bound to the swellings of the fundament if there be inflamation joyned withall it consumeth them without any pain as Marcellus Empiricus testifieth It likewise cureth the watering or dropping of the eyes as Pliny reporteth and being applyed with Oyl it consolidateth the wounds of the joints and some for the same intent use the ashes of cobwebs with fine meal and white Wine mixed together Some Chirurgeons there be that cure Warts in this manner They take a Spiders web rolling the same up on a round heap like a ball and laying it upon the
part of which Virgil in 4. Geo. hath elegantly though somewhat confusedly touched in these verses following If Bees be sick for all that live must dye That may be known by signs most certainly Their body is discoloured and their face Looks wan which shewes that death comes on apace They carry forth their dead and do lament Hanging by th' door or in their hives are pent Hunger and cold consumes them you shall find They buz as doth 'i th woods the Southern wind Or doth the sea when that the waves return Or fire clos'd up in vaults with noise doth burn And thus their distempers being understood and cured they live to extreme age which Aristotle Theophrastus Pliny Virgil Varro Columella Cardan and all Authors whatsoever do conclude not to extend it self to nine years Although I saw it by experience and with no lesse delight to be otherwise at Hanworth in the Countesse of Somersets Bees before spoken of there are yet present witnesses who are worthy of belief which will attest it that there they have lived in the same place above the space of thirty years and almost four times a year have made out fresh flights or swarms of young ones Which reason doth induce me to believe that Bees in their own natural constitution are long lived and I do with Albertus alone make a question whether they may not live so long till they dye of old age Well I know they may be taken away by diseases or incursion of their enemies but if they had alwaies all those necessaries for their life and health by them and those things which should be destructory kept from them I should easily grant that they would live to a very exceeding great age if I did not altogether say they were immortal For they alone of all other creatures are fed with Honey that immortal Nectar dropt down from heaven and with that divine dew which is the soul and spirit of all herbs trees and plants gathered together into one body or masse of whose nature use and excellent vertue we shall speak in the following Chapter CHAP. IV. Of the use of Bees WHereas the most high God did create all other creatures for our use so especially the Bees not only that as mistresses they might hold forth to us a pattern of Politick and Oeconomick vertues and inform our understanding but that they might be able as extraordinary foretellers to foreshew the success and event of things to come for in the years 90 98 113 208. before the birth of Christ when as mighty huge Swarms of Bees did settle in the chief Market-place and in the Beast-market upon private Citizens houses and on the Temple of Mars there were at that time stratagems of enemies against Rome wherewith the whole State was like to be surprised and destroyed In the reign of Severus the Bees made Combes in his military Ensigns and especially in the camp of Niger Divers wars upon this ensued between both the parties of Severus and Niger and battels of doubtful event while at length the Severian faction prevailed The Statues also of Antonius Pius placed here and there all over Hetruria were all covered with swarms of Bees and after that setled in the Camp of Cassius what great commotions after followed Julius Capitolinus relates in his History At what time also through the treachery of the Germans in Germany there was a mighty slaughter and overthrow of the Romans P. Fabius and Q. Elius being Consuls in the camp of Drusus in the tent of Hostilius Rutilus a Swarm of Bees is reported to have sate so thick that they covered the rope and the spear that held up the Tent. M. Lepidus and Minut. Plancus being Consuls as also in the Consulship of L. Paulus and C. Metellus Swarms of Bees flying to Rome as the Augurs very well conjectured did foretell the near approach of the enemy Pompey likewise making war against Caesar when he had called his allies together he set his Army in order as he went out of Dyrrachium Bees met him and sate so thick upon his Ensigns that they could not be seen what they were Philistus and Aelian relate that while Dionysius the Tyrant did in vain spur his horse that stuck in the mire and there at length left him the horse quitting himself by his own strength did follow after his Master the same way he went with a Swarm of Bees sticking on his mane intimating by that prodigy that tyrannical government which Dionysius affected over the Countrey of the Galeotae In the Helvetian History we read that in the the year 1385. when Leopoldus of Austria began to march towards Sempachum with his Army a Swarm of Bees flew to the Town and there sate upon the tyles whereby the common people rightly foretold that some forain force was marching towards them So Virgil in 7. Aeucid The Bees flew buzzing through the liquid air And pitcht upon the top o' th' Lawrel tree When the Soothsayers saw this sight full rare They did foretell th'approach of th' enemie That which Herodotus Pausanias Dio Cassius Plutarch Julius Caesar Julius Cupitolinus and other Historians with greater observation then reason have confirmed Saon Acrephniensis when he could by no means finde the Oracle Trophonius Pausanias in his Boeticks saith he was led thither by a Swarm of Bees Moreover Plutarch Pausanias Aelian Alex. Alexandrinus Theocritus and Textor are Authors that Jupiter Melitaeus Hiero of Syracuse Plato Pindar Apius Comatus Xenophon and last of all Ambrose when their nurses were absent had Honey dropt into their mouthes by Bees and so were preserved Xenophon also in his Oeconomicks calls making of Honey the shop of Vertue and to it would have matrons and mothers of families go to be instructed The Poets willingly yeeld themselves to be compared with Bees who following nature as their only Mistress use no Art at all And so Plato affirms that Poets were never able by Art to finish any master-piece Insomuch that Pindar doth vaunt himself in this to be superior or to go beyond Bacchilides and Simonides in that he was taught by nature not by Art Bees unless provoked are harmlesse but being vext they will sting and that most shrewdly Such is the condition of Poets from whence are occasioned these verses of Archilochus He that doth move me quickly finds my sting I 'l make him cry and through the City ring Wherefore Plato in his Minos gives it as a rule to those that desire peace and quiet that they be very well advised how they intermeddle with Poets and Bees To conclude so many are their virtues worthy our imitation that the Aegyptians Greeks and Chaldeans took divers Hieroglyphicks from them as when they would express subjects obedient to their Prince they set it forth in figure of a Bee very singular in that virtue when a King loving to his subjects they portray it likewise and set it forth by a Swarm of Bees Other the like emblemes are to be
on each side is somewhat like a Trident these Moth Krickets take up their abode in warm places as stoves and bake-houses and such like let them be never so hungry they will scarce indure to come into the light or if they be compelled so to do whereby to get some food they betake themselves into the dark again with what speed they can or else hide themselves in dust that they may not be found About Francford near the River Main they are frequently seen as also in London in Wine-cellars and dark dungeons the other species are more frequent in Bake-houses and warm places The stinking Beetle some confound with the Cimex or Wall-louse a creature of the like quality but not rightly The inhabitants of Peru have certain creatures which they call Araners Serius thinks them to be Butterflies They are of the bigness of the Kricket they go forth a great many of them together in the night time and all that is in the house almost that is soft they nibble about and eat it Lib. Navig Butterflies I cannot say they are because they gnaw and do not suck with their Promuscis I would therefore either make them to be Krickets or some new kinde of Moth or some creature mixt and made of both In an Epistle of a certain learned man sent to Gesner there is a description of another kind of stinking Moth. There is saith he a certain stinking flying Insect in Hungary that stinks beyond measure I should call it a stinking Grashopper but that it is more like the Kricket In Winter it desires the light in Summer it shuns it when it flies it makes a kinde of a terrible horrid noise leaving a most noisome stink behinde it Some there are when the air is infected carry this creature about them as some secret remedy and adore it nay some of them which a hog would scarce do will swallow them so afraid are they of the Plague and so desirous to use means against it They are bred in wals where they are most frequent there grow as they say the most generous wines I have found it to be true by experience So far Epistle All the younger Moths are whitish but at their full growth of a bright red or tawny The stinking are as black as a coal Divers Authors do speak of four other sorts of Moths viz. the Venereal bred in the genitals of men the Bee Moth the Cloth Moth and the Library or Book Moth from eating of the Books but none of these but the Bee Moth agreeth with the description of the Moth but that neither is so stinking as the one called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or so soft as the others befote described but of a middle nature rather pouldred with meal than anointed with oyl Of the rest of these we shall speak more fully when we come to speak God willing of the Lice and Moths called Tineae Much variety of opinion there is among the learned of the colour of the Blat Moth or the Blattean colour For if these Insects of which we have now treated are the Blattae truly so called why should not the black be the Blat colour rather than red purple colours Certain it is it is that the Bizantine Blatta yeelds a purple colour as that of the worm Cochineal doth a red or scarlet either therefore all colours may be called Blattean or else this last of ours is not one Indeed I wonder at the boldness of Turnebus and Thylesius which will have that of the worms to be the Blattaean when as they are of no Author called Blattae but rather properly it ought to be counted a Scarlet red The Blattae an colour therefore to say the truth is the Purple notwithstanding our Blattae send forth no such kinde of liquor but are fliers of the light nasty cruel rough theeving living of nocturnal depredations after an infamous manner whence Servius cals them Piratas noctu navigantes night Pirats These little creatures although they are hateful to nature it self to Men and Bees yet God hath endued them with sundry vertues in which they excell the Blattae Bizantine For take off his shell or nail which is there between its head called papaver and its neck what doth the belly contain but the ornament to dye withall and to delight the eyes with their colour And be it so that Princes and great men will buy it though never so dear and by the greatness of the price make it only fit for Kings to wear yet notwithstanding when you have heard the virtue of these Blattae otherwise so contemptible you will say they are far more to be esteemed than purple For they are wonderful good for the pains in the ears taken after this manner Take twelve Blats with their wings cropt off of old wine and honey ana â„¥ j. and half the rind of a Pomegranate of the juice of an Apple 6 spoonfuls boyl them well in a new pipkin till the rind of the Pomegranat be made limber and soft then beat them all together which done add unguentum Syriacum â„¥ j. of Tarre â„¥ j ss the juyce of 4 Onions pressed out what may suffice beat all these together and lay them by for use let this decoction be dropt into the ears and a lock of new shorn wool stopt in warm Galen sec loc l. 3. Experience witnesseth that the soft Blats boyled in oyl and put upon Warts are ro good effect The mill Blat the head being taken off and the body bruised doth cure the Leprosie as Masa and Pithen have left in their Receipts The fat of the stinking Blat when the head is oft beaten with oyl of Roses Galen out of Archigenes saith is very good for the ears but the wool in which they put it must by and by be taken out for that fat substance will quickly breed worms Others write that two or three of them boyled in oyl bruised and put into a little linnen bag and applyed are very good for the same purpose their entrails beaten with oyl or warm water are likewise good for the same being dropped into the ears Pliny saith l. 2. c. 36. that from the two first the heads must be pulled oft before they be used in medicine from the stinking the feet and wings or rather that crust or shell like wings on the back that being more hard and more poysonous but it hath no wings The stinking Blattae moreover mingled with oyl or pitch are said to cure Ulcers otherwise incurable as also Wenns and Swellings in the neck Botches being layed on for 21. daies together they cure also the Scab and Fellons bruised and festered Sores the wings and feet being first taken off We disdain to hear of these things yet truly Diodorus as Pliny saith reports that they have helped the Kings-evill and difficulty of breathing mixed with Roâ—n and Honey the most learned thought fit to keep the ashes of them in a horn box for this purpose or
wind creeps between the skin and flesh which hapneth no doubt by the flux of humours melted by the poison and the vapours elevated upwards The lips are of a strong colour to wit of a dead violet In the mouth there is the like poysonous taste the stomach belly and guts do ake extremely the urine is stopt the body is ill all over as also the head and brain are sensible of it A remedy of this is Salt-peter taken in Wine and Oxe gall Useful to that purpose is womans milk suckt out abundantly and in defect cowes goats or sheeps milk Womans urine drank and vomited up again but before a vomit they ought not be given because by that means the Feaver would be more sharp Dioscor First of all therefore of good store of Wine sodden or with oyl of Myttle Bacon lard or fat Pork broth or with good store oyl of Olive or boyled Wine a Vomit is to be made New Wine drank freely is held to be a special remedy against the Buprestis Galen and Ardoynus Pliny commends Nitre with water or Laserwort Asa dulcis Wine and Honey or Bezoin dissolved in warm water or take red Nitre 4. drams and in warm water or Posca cause Vomit After vomit there must be means used for purgation afterwards use dry Figs as Galen prescribeth or a decoction of them in old generose Wine when the fit begins to bate The Thebane date is prescribed to eat alone or bruised in sweet Wine or womans Milk all kinde of Pears and oyl of blossomes of Apples are much commended for this use Nicander commends wood-pears for that I think he means by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and especially Myrtle berries following the authority of Dioscorides For that they do refrigerate and bind and by that means do asâ—wage the hot nature of the Buprestis and help the weakness of the stomach But heed must be taken they be not eaten while the body is yet swoln lest the disease be increased by the poyson being kept in Some with good reason give 31. berries of bladder Nightshade and with Almonds the make Almond-milk together with the decoction of Lettice Violets Borage Bugloss garden Nightshade Plantain Raisins and the great cold Seeds Aetius gives the root of Scorpion grass in sweet Wine to drink Many extoll the wings and feet of the Cantharides for an Antidote against the Buprestis but either it hath an opposite quality by antipathy which makes good that opinion or else we may suspect it to be false If an Horse or an Oxe eat one of these flies presently he swels growes mad and shortly after bursteth and dieth So Aelian 6. de Anim. c. 35. and Hierocles a Greek writer witnesseth it He bids to binde the horses head and to open the veins about his nostrils that the bloud may run forth of his mouth and to rub it with Coleworts and give him Fish-pickle and Oyl and Vegetius likewise almost in the same words If a Horse or an Oxe eat a Buprestis with the grass his belly will instantly swell he is inflated all over he refuseth his meat and he often and by little and little sends forth his dung To cure this Absyrtus and Vigetius prescribe one and the same remedy presently get upon the Horse and cause him to gallop as fast as he is able afterwards let him bloud a little in the roof of his mouth and let him swallow the bloud as it runs forth chewing it in his mouth then keep him continually walking let his diet be wheat steeped in sweet Wine with Leeks given him with a horn in Wine warm well beaten with Raisins Some as Praxanus taught them pour Oyl into the nostrils of the Oxe l. 17. c. 17. To Goats that are swoln with the Buprestis apply Bacon-lard or pour the fat broth of it down their throat saith the same Author The Cynoprestis seems to be the same with the Buprestis for that works the same effects in Dogs as this doth in Cattel or if it be a different sort of creature from this I confess ingenuously I have not met with it CHAP. XX. Of the Cantharides or Spanish Fly I Know not what the reason was that the Cantharides above the rest so well known of so great use in Physick were omitted by Pennius and Gesner Which task notwithstanding I shal willingly undertake and thus I begin their History The word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in Greek is the same in Latine in French it is Cantaride in Italian Catarella in Spanish Cubillo in the German Tongue Grune Kefer Goldkefer in Low Dutch Spaensche Vlieghe in English Cantharides or Spanish Fly Of the Cantharides two sorts have come to our knowledge the one greater the other lesse Of the greater sort there are some thick and long taken in wheat and fat likewise as the Blats are drawn with variety of golden lines which in the wings run athwart and those are accounted of the best use in Physick Others are lesse and lean hairy called the innermost not so fit for medicine Of the greater sort also not all are of a glittering green but some of them of a sad red but all of them of an inexpressible splendor and very pleasant to the eye Their virtue consists in burning the body causing a crust or as Dioscorides will have it to corrode cause exulceration and provoke heat and for that reason are used mingled with medicines that are to heat the Lepry Tettars and Cancerous sores And in being mixt with Cecots or fit plaisters they do cure deformities of the nails causing them to fall off They are used in medicines for Corns on the feet or hands Some anoint the places where the hair 〈◊〉 off with Cantharides bruised and liquid Pitch the skin being prepared with Nitre they are good for Cauteries but care must be had that they do not ulcerate so deep then some command to annoint those ulcers made with the heads of with the gall or dung of Mice mixt with Helleboâ—e and Pepper Cantharides mixt with quick Lime cure Botches as if you should cut them off with a razour Some use to cast a little of them into Medicaments to provoke urine But there is a great question of it because they are poyson drank in respect of the bladder that they afflict with perpetual tomentâ— But these is no question but in oyntment they may do good with the juyce of wilde Vine or with Sheeps or Goats suet Some of my Masters put only their wings and their feet into Medicaments that provoke urine We saith Galen are wont to cast in the Cantharides whole and we judge those to be the best that are found in wheat and have a yellow girdle running athwart their wings to adorn them L. 3. l. 11. desimpl fac also put under they mightily provoke the terms and put to medicaments for the Dropsie they are a very good antidote against it as not only Hippocrates and Dioscorides but Galen Avicenna Rhasis
work The field Spider with a body almost round and brown that lives about grasse and Sheep the English call it Shepheard either because it is pleased with the company of Sheep or because Shepherds think those fields that are full of them to be good wholsome Sheep-pasture and no venome to be it for this Shepherd taken inwardly or outwardly applyed is a harmlesse Creature There are yet more kindes of Spiders for there is a kinde of black Spider with short feet that hath a white Egge under the belly white as snow and running swiftly when the Egge breaks many young Spiders run forth which go all with their Dam to feed and at night they rest upon the Dams back Pennius supposed that this was rough with warts untill he touched it with a straw and saw the young Spiders to run down Also in rotten hollow trees there are very black Spiders with great bodies very short feet that dwell with Cheeslips and Catterpillers called Juli. Also saith Gesner we have seen them all white with a compacted and broad little body upon the flower of Mountain Parsley Roses and grasse they have most long slender legs the mouth is noted with a spot and both sides with a red line he thought it was venemous because he saw a Munkey almost dead that had eaten one and could hardly be recovered by powring Oyl down his throat We know also Spiders with a long body and a sharp tail they are red from black as also green Also there are red ones of two kindes one great one that dwells only in the Caves of the earth with a body Cinnaber colour with feet yellow from red the tail and belly tend toward yellow a little from brown There is another sort very small lesse then a Sheeps Tike as red as Scarlet it hath but six feet being a monster amongst Spiders it hath a head like as Spiders have but it is very small It lives in the earth and weaves a very course Web and not well wrought sometimes she wandreth abroad and shews great agility to catch her prey We grant willingly that there are more kindes of Spiders and of more colours for our land brings not all things forth nor yet did Actorides though he was called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 see all things It may be future times may delineate the rest better In the mean time we have spoken of Spiders if not to delight yet according as we thought fit and we would do no more because in writing so much of them we have taken great pains Yet this we shall observe that all Net-workers and Web-workers amongst Spiders do grow to have greater skill by age and that shut up in Wooll they increase the generation of Moths and they yearly oft times cast off their old skin and the greater and lustier they are the more ingenious are they found to be in their gifts of life CHAP. XV. Of the generation copulation and use of Spiders IT is manifest that Spiders are bred of some aereall seeds putrefied from filth and corruption because that the newest houses the first day they are whited will have both Spiders and Cobwebs in them But their propagation is frequently by copulation the desire and act whereof lasts almost all the Spring They do by a mutual and frequent attraction of their Net as it were kindle venery and continually aâ— they draw they come neerer then at last they copulate backwards because that manner of copulation by reason of their round body was most convenient After the same manner do all the Phalangia that weave copulate together and they are generated from creatures of the same kinde as Aristotle testifies But they copulate not in the Spring but at beginning of the Winter at which time they go fastest and hurt certainly and seem to be more venemous Some after copulation lay one Egge alone and carry it under their belly and it is white as snow and they sit on it by course the male sometimes helping the female Others lay many and very small Egges like Poppy-seeds out of which sometimes thirty small Spiders are bred after some trifling sports in their Web they go forth with their Dam and in the evening they come in again untill such time as each of them hath learned to spin its own Web to live more safely and pleasantly they thrust forth their young by leaping they sit on their Egges three dayes and in a Lunar moneth they bring their young to perfection The House Spiders lay their Egges in a thin Web but the field Spiders in a thick because they may resist the greater forces of winde and rain the place helps much for Generation For as in the Countrey of Arrhentia and in the Island of Crete there are great store of Phalangia so in Ireland there are none they did not long indure in England the Tower at Gratianâ—â—oâ—is would suffer none for though many of our Spiders swallowed down do hurt us yet their bite is harmlesse and no man is killed by it buâ— the bitings of all Phalangia are deadly Where shall you not finde these Spiders that bite without doing hurt they climbe up into Kings Courts to teach them vertue they work in Noble mens Chambers to teach them their Duties they dwell in poor mens houses to teach them patience to suffer and to labour Goe but into your Orchard and each tree is inhabited by them in your Garden they hide in Roses in the field they work in hedges you shall finde them at home and abroad that you may have no cause to complain that there are no examples for vertue and diligence every where The Spider though Pallas called her impudent Martial unconstant Claudian bold Politian pendulous Juvenal dry Propertius corrupt Virgil light Plautus unprofitable yet is she good and created for many uses as shall appear clearly wherefore adoring the Majesty of God who hath given so great vertues to so small a Creature we shall proceed to speak of the profits we receive by her The Flie-catching Spider wrapt in a linnen cloth and hang'd on the left arm is good to drive away a Quotidian saith Trallianus But better iâ— many of them be boyld with Oyl of Bayes to the consistence of a Liniment if you anoynt the arteries of the Wrists the arms and Temples before the fit the Feaver abates and seldome comes again Kiramides A Spider bruised with a plaister and spread on a cloath and applyed to the Temples cures a Tertian Dioscorides The Spider called Loycos put in a quill and hang'd on the breast doth the same Pliny That House Spider that spins a thick fine and white Web shut up in a piece of leather or a Nur-shell and hang'd to the arm or neck is thought to drive away the fits of a Quartane Dioscorid Pennius saith he proved it to be true Three living Spiders put into Oyl let them presently boyl on the fire drop some of that Oyl warm into the ear that
juster Kings then Lysimachus was said to be nor were there better subjects then the Athenians yet both of them did many things disorderly in famin and he gained thereby to be branded with the name of a pusillanimous faint-hearted Prince and they of rebellious Subjects Therefore this warre of the Pismires is to be commended that is not undertaken for a Crown of Ivy Bayes or of Gold or of Grasle which was accounted the most ancient but from intestine necessity and nature leads them to it for neither could Solon himself endure thirst nor Solomon conquet hunger For these will dig under all walls will be held by no bands and they only know neither Lawes nor bounds Aeneas Silvius relates a strange history of this fight lib. de Europa c. 50. His words are these In the County of Bononia many little Pismires that were hungry clambered up a dry Pear tree to seek for food the greater Pismires came upon them in no small number and these took the meat out of their mouths and killed some of them others they threw down those that were cast down returned to their Ant hill or fort in the way they meet with others and seemed to talk with them and rip up the injury they had received and they bring forth all the forces they had and their companions out of their tents About two hours almost afterwards so many bands of the lesser Pismires and such a mighty Army drew forth that the whole field appeared black by these black souldiers they came all well guarded and compassing the stock of the tree round they began to climbe up The greater Pismires when they saw their enemies at hand drew close into a body to receive the encounter aloft so soon as the Armies met and fought the great ones killed abundance of the lesser ones with fierce biting them and they destroyed all those in a terrible skirmish that first ventred up that at the root of the Pear-tree there lay a great heap of them slayn The rest of the little Pismires and the middle Army would not be daunted by this or run away but they recollect their forces and attempt to be revenged and following more stifly and pressing one Army after another they mounted up the tree in greater numbers than before and they bite their enemies on the back on the sides and in the front and they forced them to yeeld and leave the tree The greater Pismires were much too strong for them but the numerous multitudes of the little ones prevailed against them and twenty at least set upon one This happened when Eugenius the fourth was Pope Nicolaux Pistoriensis a most learned Lawyer standing to behold it and he related the manner of the fight sincerely and truly Olaus Magnus reports the like accident to have hapned at Vpsal and Holme before that barbarous and cruel Tyrant Christianus the second was driven forth by the Inhabitants of Sweden from ruling over the Goths and Swedes In which battel that must not be forgotten the lesser Pismires after they had won the field interred the bodies of their fellowes leaving their enemies exposed to the Crowes and Muskins also they made choice of a high Tower for the place of combat as if they would with a clear voice call and draw unto them the prodigy of Tyrants and his followers to see their destiny revealed and the punishment that hang over their heads Also they hurt Elephants and Bears but not unlesse they be first hurt by them They afflict Serpents and Dragons and make them mad but it is either because they hinder them in their labour and stop the way or because they breath their venemous breath into their caves and turrets Grashoppers and Dormice they hate exceedingly those because they spend the Summer time in singing these because they lose the Winter in sleeping for a Common wealth well regulated doth punish idle persons as well as those that are wicked and the Spartans were wont to cast forth those that would not labour They live very long and would hardly ever die unless the Birds did catch them before their time or the flouds and waters drowned them They are for the most part very healthful because they observe those three rules of Plato very exactly mirth in labour temperance in diet and sparing in venereous actions For what creature labours more chearfully diets more moderately or did nature ever produce that is more temperate in venery Also there is in them many seeds of domestick discipline justice friendship and other virtues and had we the like either by nature or by art in us we would scorn to live basely on the labours of others and we would refuse to be slaves to our bellies Moreover they have some sense of future things for before a famine they labour exceedingly continuing their work night and day and every where laying up a great store as Juvenal hath it Satyr 6. Hunger and cold away drive And from the Ant learn thou an art to thrive Since therefore to wind up all in a few words they are so exemplary for their great piety prudence justice valour temperance modesty charity friendship frugality perseverance industry and art it is no wonder that Plato in Phaedone hath determined that they who without the help of Philosophy have lead a civill life by custom or from their own diligence they had their souls from Ants and when they die they are turned to Ants again To this may be added as I related before the fable of the Myrmidons who being a people of Aegina applied themselves to diligent labour in tilling the ground continual digging hard toiling and constant sparing joyned with virtue and they grew thereby so rich that they passed the common condition and ingenuity of men and Theognis knew not how to compare them better then to Pismires that they were originally descended from them or were transformed into them and as Strabo reports they were therefore called Myrmidons The Greeks relate the history otherwise then other men do namely that Jupiter was changed into a Pismire and so deflowred Eurymedusa the mother of the Graces as if he could no otherwise deceive the best woman then in the shape of the best creature Hence ever after he was called Pismire Jupiter or Jupiter King of Pismires For the generation of Pismires are endowed with so much virtue and justice that they need no King to govern them for each of them can regulate his own passions or if they have any King it is the Supreme Jupiter that governs all who is deservedly thought to be the Fountain and Authour of all virtue both in Men and Pismires and all other creatures For there is none amongst men that doth govern better then the Pismire and we that should teach them as saith St. Hieronymus may learn of them divers things that are necessary for our souls and bodies For when contrary to their nature and industry they hide themselves we are certain that rain is not far
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
Worms in the belly Costus by its bitternesse with water kills all Worms But Dioscorides lib. 1. writes that it drives out only broad VVorms with water and honey which place Marcellus interpreting blots out that word and honey as put in amisse for this reason because it is contrary and seems not to agree with the cure for VVorms For saith he they are raised and nourished by sweet things and belly VVorms are not driven forth by them unlesse perhaps Honey must be therefore added that they being deceived by the sweetnesse of it they may take in the bitter Costus in greater quantity as we use to do in curing children when we give them bitter or strong potions we cover them with some sweet savour or pleasant smell In which businesse heâ— seems to seek a knot in a Bull-rush as we read in the Comedy and yet he confesseth it to be otherwise For whether the word Honey be read in Dioscorides or not for I am not yet certain of it nor hath Ruellius set it down it is sufficient that bitter Medicaments such as Costus are and such like were given alwayes almost by Dioscorides Pliny Galen and others for to cure Worms with sweet things and chiefly with Honey or Mede or Oxymel for the same reason that Marcellus mentioneth lib. 4. cap. 57. which Paulus added in these words Because some men oft times refuse bitter potions as having an ill taste of these thing herein comprehended they shal not give any that are manifestly bitter but mingled with some sweet thing as he said a little before that all these medicaments must be mingled with Honey or Oxymel and so given to drink Oras Lucretius saith that the improvident Age of young people may be deceived or else may be able to take it being enticed by such a taste For children most commonly are subject to Worms Therefore nothing hinders but that the word Honey should be added as Marcellus himself testifies if we read him in some old Copies Likewise a Cantharis bruised and drank with a Briony root drives forth Worms as Galen writes lib. de compâ—s Theriaces Of cold things the juice of Mouse-ear with Ale of each one Cyathus Groundsel eaten the juice of Plantain especially when the belly is loose given one spoonful or a small measure to drink and the herb it self bruised laid to the navel Coriander seeds with the juice of Pomegranates and Oyl destroy the Worms in the guts or drank with sweet wine Hot things as boyled Beets taken with raw Garlick by the Nitrous quality it hath brings them forth but the juice is hurtfull A Pomegranate bruised and boyled in three Heminae of wine to one Hemina drives forth Worms takes away the pain and the juice o 〈…〉 the root one dram and half weight will kill them Sumach of Syria will do the same and the seed of Orache Our new writers adde that it is manifest by experience that the sharpest Vinegar drank when we go to bed will drive out the Worms But amongst those things that prevail much is Corallina so called which being powred or mingled with Honey or Oxymel or drank with Honey-wine doth wonderfully kill Worms or drive them out half dead This took its name from the likenesse of Corall since both of them grow in the water and for sixty years almost it hath been used to good purpose to drive forth Worms if I be not mistaken this is that which Dioscorides lib. 4 and Galen call 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is Sea-mosse and if that they did not attribute to it the same force we do to drive forth Worms as we see in Corallina as they call it I shal not therefore think that it is any thing else besides Dioscorides and Galens 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 For the Antients did not know the vertues of all Simples for the true nature of each cannot be found out by any other way than by its effects in physick A mighty work and secret from God than which there can be no greater found out Also many things are found now adayes that were not found out in our forefathers dayes and no wonder since these experiments are made by Countrey-men and such as are ignorant of learning who commonly live only where they grow besides the negligence of seeking when there are so many Physicians at hand every where Also many things are found out that want namâ—s To this we may adde the uncertain way of finding out for in things that are found some were found by chance saith Pliny lib. 25. cap. 2. others were revealed by God But the foulest cause of this rarity is that they who know things will not discover them as if they should quite lose what they acquaint others with They are as envious indeed as those are who either suppresse the monuments of Antiquity or else utterly demolish them which they for that end that what is written by the Ancients may be attributed to themselves or if they have delivered any famous matter they that write other mens opinions will let that be lost But if there be any that will contend and say it cannot be that they should be ignorant that Sea-mosse was good to drive forth Worms to those I answer that the Ancients did not commit to writing all the natures of Simples that they knew For we know many of the precepts of Pythagoras and Socrates which yet cannot be known out of their Books because they wrote none And Plato though he left so many Books in writing yet besides those he wrote his followers take many things for his that he never put in writing Nor hath that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 growing in every place as they report the same faculty but the Apothecaries in some certain places of Italy fish for it and they sell it under the name of Corallina But let this suffice This is rather to be enquired into why being that Corallina tasts salt Dioscorides Pliny Galen and others report it to have a cooling faculty when as it is known that all â—alt things are hot and earthly not unlike to bitter things that are hot Whether it be because the sea-water is salt yet hath in it a great deal of potable water as Aristotle hath sufficiently demonstrated it and therefore by that it is the less hot Or else because it contains in it much earth and so it is drier and thicker But such things as grow in the sea must needs be of the same faculty with it Because therefore that Sea-mosse growes in the sea Dioscorides and others attribute to it a thickning quality but as it contains in it much water fit to drink and as it is of an earthly quality by that it cools Lastly all that are troubled with Worms are helped with the smell of the hair of Ichneumon they call it an Indian rat as Paulus writes The juyce of Housleek drank in Wine will drive out of the belly round Worms Worm-wood Wine drank doth the same The herb of
great Turnfoil drank with its seed adding thereunto Nitre Hysop Cresses and water will cast them forth The root of female Fern 3 drams drank in Wine will force out the round and broad Worms of the belly as Ruellius and Marcellus who interpreted Dioscorides do both assert But Galen saith that it kils not round Worms but Ascarides and broad Worms for so he writes lib. Therapeut method cap. 14. But Wormwood can destroy round Worms broad Worms require more strong helps as Fern is and so doth that Worm the Greeks call 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Theophrastus was of this opinion who writes that female Fern mingled with Honey is good against broad Worms of the belly if it be mingled with Honey and for Ascarides in sweet Wine For so he sets it down Female Fern is good against broad Worms and small ones against broad ones mingled with Honey but against small ones in sweet Wine It is certain that Ascarides both are and are called small Worms Moreover Galen lib de simpl Medic. facult 8. ascribes the same vertue to the female Fern that the male hath Now Pliny writes that the female will kill only broad Worms and not round Pli 〈…〉 lib. hist 27. c. 9. And again that both that is both male and female will drive forth Worms of the belly broad Worms with Honey the rest with sweet Wine drank for three daies and he excludes neither round Worms nor Ascarides But Galen in one place excludes both round Worms and Ascarides and in another place he writes that it will destroy Ascarides with broad Worms What now shall we say where Authors are of so many different opinions shall we say that female Fern will kill all Worms in the belly For Galen ascribes the same virtue to it he doth to the male but that especially it kils broad Worms and in the next place Ascarides which being at the bottome of the belly require a stronger remedy as Fern is that the force of it may come so far But since it can drive forth broad Worms and Ascarides that are more seldome and the one is in the guts the other farthest from the stomach it will far sooner destroy round Worms that lie in the upper guts Galen therefore will not fight with himself in this for it sufficeth if it will kill broad VVorms and if it can destroy them it can more easily destroy Ascarides and easiest of all round VVorms But Pliny as who best of all knew that saith it will drive out the rest also that is both round VVorms and Ascarides But that he saith so is manifest out of Paulus lib. c. 58. who in his method of curing round and broad VVorms mentions Fern which yet all men agree is most properly used to drive forth broad VVorms Avicenn 16 Tertii tract 5. c. 4. shewes this most clearly in these words The medicins that kill Ascarides are stronger than those that kill long Worms and those things that kill long Worms and Ascarides will also kill broad Worms Gith or Nigella not only eaten but laid in a plaister to the belly or anointed on the navil with water brings them forth In which place we must note Marcellus who saith it will drive forth broad VVorms and not round but Ruellius interprets this by the contrary Iâ— Marcellus have done right I leave other men to judge this is certain that Galen is of Ruellius minde who hath written only that it will kill VVorms and as I said before it is taken generally for round VVorms Paulus and Aetius agree with Ruellius who in their curative method for round VVorms often speak of Gith but never for broad VVorms Wormwood called Santonicum of it self or boyled with Rice adding Honey to it will kill Worms The seeds of Nettles bruised or of Coleworts or Cummin with water or Mints with it or Hysop with Honey and water or Cresses-seed bruised with Vinegar kils them Celsus l. 4. c. 17. Oribasius lib. ad Ennâ—pium filium hath written that Calamint Cardamom Lupins and the powder of them in drink or with Honey by way of Electuary or given in Posca to drink are sufficient to kill round Worms Also the leaves and buds of the Peach-tree bruised and laid upon the belly can do as much also Mints in drink and Sorrel Purslain boyl'd the juyce of Succory or the decoction of Sebestens or the Sebestens themselves boyl'd and eaten are very good Also the ashes of burnt Harts-horn is thought very effectual for this use especially of that which growes on the right side of the Stags head It is burnt thus Break the Harts-horn and put it into a new earthen Crucible and lute it well put it into the furnace and let it burn till it be white Scribonius Largus c. 141. gives it thus Harts-horn saith he raspt with a workmans rasp with water of Sebestens boyled give 4 or 5 spoonfuls of it which were soked the day before in 3 cyathi then bruise and give it adding the water to it An Oxe shank burnt and drank with Milk drives out round Worms saith Galen Costus with water drives forth broad Worms of the belly Galen de com Ther. ad Pis Cardamom Garlick eaten The leaves of female Fern taken with Honey in a Lohock But the root of the male 3 drams with Honey-water drank will drive them forth but better if it be given with so many oboli of Scammony or black Hellebore Also the root of white Chamaeleon drank a sawcer full for which use it is drank with sharp Wine and the decoction of Origanum Walnuts eaten largely the pill of the Mulberry-root boyled in water and drank besides that it loosneth the belly it will force out broad Worms also the decoction of Pomgranate roots drives them out and kils them The decoction of Pomgranate pils can do as much The root of wilde Bugloss a sawcer sull with Hysop and Cardamom drank doth the like Ruellius the Interpreter of Dioscorides seems to have followed Paulus who say that with Hysop and Cardamom but Marcellus saith with Hysop and Cresses drank it will drive forth broad Worms what was said before of Turnsoil Marcellus seems here to follow Galen lib. 6. de simp fac who writes that a sawcer full of it is good drank with Hysop and Cresses But the juyce of Cedar kils Ascarides and so doth Calamint the juyce of it being drank or given in a Clyster The decoction of Wormwood mingled with oyl and given Clyster-wise and the decoction of the lesser Centory given with Salt-peter and Honey hath the same force or the decoction of the wilde Gourd of wilde Saffron if the right intestine were first emptied with sharp pickle The root of female Fern drank for three daies in 3 drams of Wine drives forth Ascarides Also old Hogs grease put into the Anus is excellent good Both Paulus and Aetius testifie that Feavers commonly accompany round Worms and we found it true by daily experience When therefore there is a Feaver sometimes we