live young breake the back hath ugly bumps on it it is ash-colour or dun That Gesner dissected was seven fingers long black with white spots on the belly the rest spotted with black and rugged There is another sort with bright half circles on the back and there is of those the greater and the lesser Salamander The last is that of Matheolus common among the Utinenses the head rounder and shorter The Land-ones tayled like the eel black-backed with murry-spots they love dark ditches and fat soils and ponds with white mud there they cleave under stones and seldome swim above Gesner cast one into a tub of water and it put forth the mouth They are slow on ground and hold their mouths close shut you must force them open Cast them into salt they wagge the tayl and dy Beat them long they live The skinne so hard a sword cannot pierce it Out of the wounds comes milky matter Provoke them they swell and start upright and pour out poysonous sweat and look wistly on the provoker If a Sow eat one shee dies CHAPTER IV. Of the Stellio THis goes for a Lizard called Stellio from his starry marks and in Greeke Askalalotaes or Koolobataes from the soft and silent gate and creeping through walls and Galeotes because Weesellike it is ever climbing softly there are divers kinds of them That of the Greeks called Colotes and Ascalabotes it is full of spots and hath a harsh voyce and feeds on every thing That of Italy resembling Chamaeleon living on dew and Spiders and is said to be venomous as the other harmles Hether referre the little white beasts like small Lizards of a bright and brittle-body about Rome called Tarantulaes but the small Lizard is silver-coloured called Liakoni In Gazara was seen a black Stellio as big as a Weesel great-headed and big-bellied We give below a Print of the Matâ—â—â—oli and Facetan Lizard There are none in Germany France nor England but in Thrace Sicily and Syria and those more deadly then they of Italy They keep in chinks of doors and windows and chimnyes That that is foe to the Scorpion is not in Italy bred There are venomous ones In winter they ly hid and eat not Like snakes they grow young again they help the falling-sicknesse they ly in wait for Spiders and Bees and hunt them and Scorpions they seldome bite having bent teeth which they leave in a wound their bite benums but seldome kills The flesh plucks splinters out mans body it cures its own bite and putrified in oyl cures the Scorpions bite In Quartans some layd it in a box under the patients head to prevent the fit The ashes held in the left hand provoke in the right subdue Iust. The parts make sleepy and benum the liver-pounct eases tooth-ach sprinkled on The dung takes away warts the older the better against epilepsy drowned in wine the wine drunke breeds spots or freckles on the face the gall dissolved in water gathers Weesels CHAPTER V. Of the Scincus or Land-Crocodile THe Scincus so called perhaps from Tinsa in the Arabique is also called the land or lesser Crocodile either for being like or for dreading Saffran It â—s of the bignes of a green Lizard or the Salamander fourefooted a thumb thick and not above a quarter long the tayl round and scaly the scales small on the body many and clayish coloured the head long little thicker then the neck the belly as it were winged the tayl round as of the Lizard but shorter and crooked at the end a streak from head to tayl Gesner saw one with five toes and nails a thumb and half broad two palms long and another six palms long at Constantinople The are bred onely in Arabia about Mecha and are brought thence to Alexandria and Venice They live on sweet flowers therefore no wonder their dung sents so on dry ground they lay egges and bury them The flesh is a great antidote Rhasis uses to hang the young on those that are frighted in their sleep Pulverid it makes lustfull the same flesh helps the falling sicknes in India and makes fat The heart in black Sheep-wool of a Lamb first yeaned being worn is thought to chase away quartan-agues The gall with hony is cried up against bloodshot-eyes the reins increase seed the blood with borax smeard on the face removes freckles the fat helps reinpain the ashes of the skin some sprinkle on parts to be cut off to make them lesse sensible Aegineta of the tayl make his oyntment Entaticon out of the bowells is a perfume made against stopping of the matrix the dung is antiepileptick and clears the eyes the best is the white and mouldring that soon melts in water whores use it to keep their faces sleek and unwrinkled as you bruise it it smells like old leven Of old it was sophisticated with dung of stares fed with rice The Indian and Arabian are the biggest In India is bred a beast like it as great as a Malta Dog with a rough scaly skin called by the Indians Phatagen happily it is the Candiverbera or smitetayl In Cyprus is a Lizard everyway resembling the Scincus In the Lake of Vicenza is a divers sort a kind of Salamander The Scincus Rhasis hath a tayl not round but flat or squat about the sides CHAPTER VI. Of the Foure-footed Cordylus and other Lyzards IT is like the fish Cordylus called by some Latermen the land-Crocodile and the Candiverbera because it is ever whisking and clapping with the tayl which is like a knotted club and beats all that come near him Some say he hath gils but there hangs one in a publique library with onely two holes by the corners of the mouth It is like a Crocodile but lesse and moves the under-jaw headed and mouthed like a Tortoyse the neck short and swelling below each foot hath five toes the body scaly skin hard like a snakes slough tayl round with scaly ringlets inexpressible the scales are hard as bones and fouresquare hollowed a litle to make the tayl round joyned like tiles the corners sharp as thorns they are transparant and of a pale yellow as horn the belly struts out more then a Crocodiles the back broad and flat This may proove Aelians Indian Phattages by the description whose rough skin they use to cut with CHAPTER VII Of the Chamaeleon TE name imports a little Lion the notation from a Camel and a Lion is ridiculous of late the wild call it Gamaleon Zamaleon Hamaleon and Maleon It resembles a Lizard only the thighs stand uprighter and higher the sides are joyned to the belly as a fish and the back-bone such snouted like a hog the tail long and pointed with rounds viperlike it is crooked clawed it is rough-bodied as the Crocodile the eyes hollow and sunk great and coloured as the body the flesh is but little about the head jaws and dock
kept in a thick glasse-bottle waxed over It recovers the lost sent if you hang it in an open pot in a house of office For the use of Musk Authours differ about the temper of it Averroes holds it hot and dry in the end of the second degree Sethus in the third All confesse it to be a thin substance It drawes out blood put to the nose and opens the vessels of the body It is besides used to strengthen and against trembling fainting wind to purge the head in sweet-balls and wash-balls in censing in pomanders and sweet-oyntments Yet it is ill for the mother to some women as the Venetian and Northern women POINT VI. Of the Bezoar or the Pazahartica-Goat MEn write diversly in the describing of the Bezoartican-Goat Bellâ—nensis seems to deny there is any such beast while he relates out of Thiphasis the Arabian that that they call the Bezoar-stone is taken out of the veins The Arabs fetch it from the Harts Monardes from the testimony of eye-witnesses reports it to be as great as the Hart and resembling him Bontius saith that he is shaped like our goats of Europa except that they have more upright and longer horns and that some of them are partly coloured as Tigers and goodly to look on two whereof are to be seen in the fort in Batavia The greater or lesser the stone is that they carry the nimbler or heavier they go which the wily Armenians and Persians well know They feed on an herb like Saffran the eating whereof breeds that stone Whence it comes to passe that because an Isle between Cormandel and Ceylon called by the Portugals Isle de Vaccas or of Cows is sometimes overflowen that the goats must be transported thence to save them they being deprived of that herb breed not that stone and when the waters are down and they are brought back thether they yield the Bezoar-stone again which is as troublesome to them as to us the stone is in the bladders or reins Whence we may gather how vain their relations are that tell us that it is bred in their bowels or reins or the gall Some call it Pasani some Balsaar some Pazaher that is an antidote against poyson It is bred especially in Persia in Stabanon three dayes journey beyond Lara where the Persian Kings are watchful to challenge for themselves all the stones that exceed a certain weight They are of several shapes and kindes some much costlier then others and of greater vertue and efficacy There are counterfaits made Monardes from the relation of Guido de Lavaretus writes the right ones are made up of kind of lates or barks folded within one another very bright and shining as if they were pollished having within a dust or a chaffe Bontius thinks that Genuine that rubed on a piece of chalk shews a light-red cast into a bason full of water and left there three hours together looses nothing of the weight When the counterfait becomes hevier or lighter taken out of water and rubed with chalk splits Much is written by many of the vertues thereof that laid on any bare part of the body it defends it against poyson That the powder cures bites sprinkled on the bitten place That cast on wild beasts it benums them and kills vipers with any liquor That all receits taken against poyson and malignant Fevers are vain unlesse Bezoar be also used Monardes gives examples of diverse hereby rescued out of the very jawes of death It helps melancholy quartons fainting fits epilepsies giddinesse stone worms and what not But it is observed to be more helpful to women then men Some in India dream that it makes them young again Monardes hath a whole tract about it But Bontius writes that he findes by a thousand experiments that the vertue thereof is not so great He saith that the stones called pazahar bred in the stomack of the Simior are round and above a finger long and are counted the best Hether may be referred the Vicuna and Taruga The Vicuna is a swift beast of Peru. It is hornlesse else like a wild goat Nether is that any hinderance that he wants horns since there are dogs that are said to have horns when most have none He delights in mountanious and rocky places She loves cold and deserts She seems to be refreshed with snow and frosts She loves company and the Herd She runs from all men she meets putting her young ones afore being carefull of them She is taken by a swift chase to which end three thousand Barbarians compasse a mountain and by degrees make all the wild here together sometimes more then three hundred they send the females after the young ones They are taken also when they come to a convenient space and toyles of cord and lead laid for them They shear them to make coverlids their wool is fine as silke of a lasting colour being natural it needs no dye In hot whether it refreshes helping the inflammation of the reins wherefore they stuffe therewith tikes for beds It is said to ease the Gout The flesh hath no good relish yet it is an Indian dainty And a piece of it new killed and laid on the eye removes suddenly the smart They breed the Bezoar in the bowels next to the eastern Vicuna is the Taruca of that kind but swifter and greater and deeper colour of soft and dangling ears not delighting in company she wanders among rocks alone In these is the Bezoar-stone found both of greater vertue and bulk POINT VII Of the Scythian Suhak and the Goat with dangling eares OF the Scythian Suhak see Aldrovan pag. 313. We owe to Aristotle the mention of the Goat with hanging-ears a palm and more broad and reaching near the ground Probably it is that in the print here following which they call the Indian Goat and the Syrian Mambrina By the wool hair face and horns it seems to resemble a sheep rather then a Goat The colour is white POINT VIII Of the Oryx THree sorts of creatures are by the Greeks termed Oryges One a water one two land ones Of the first Strabo writes treating of Turdetamia which some suppose to be the Sea-orke Of the two latter kinds Pliny and Oppian mention The name Oryx comes from To Orytteâ—n or digging because at new Moon it turns eastward and digs up the earth with the fore-feet For the shape it is one-horned and cloven-footed It is of the kind of wild Goats But of a contrary hayr turning toward the head as it grows on the Aethiopian Bull. He is engendred in the driest parts of Africa ever without drinke and strongly usefull against thirst for the Getulian theeves hold out by a draught of wholesome liquor found in their bladders Albertus saith that he is as big as a Hart bearded used to the deserts and easily taken in a net Herodotus makes him as great as an Ox Nor have we any certainty of
that Zoroaster lived once six moneths with milke alone which Atheneus declares also of another As for what belongs to Medicines Horses milk whay blood greace curd teeth heart-bone liver stones gall hayre hoofes sweat foame spittle stale and dunge hath place therein their Milke is very purgative as Dioscorides delivers Whay serves to cleanse the Ulsers of the reins to wit that that by seathing is sever'd from the milk if we beleeve Aethius Rhasis writes that a woman if shee unwittingly drink Mares-milk if shee presently accompany with her husband shall conceive I find also in Pliny that the same milk is good to wash the matrix Their blood is of a purifying quality but whether that of mares that have taken horse or of stallions or of either sex experience may best decide Pliny writes that the same is good for the Kings evill and fariers use it for divers diseases The Phragmaticum drawn from the matrix warme with oyl and wine and smeard on over the whole beast against the hayr cures it The Gall is of a malignant nature and is reckoned among poysons so that the Priest for that cause must not touch a Horse His grease smoked brings forth a dead birth and the after-birth follows His marrow is mixt with ointment for the cramp Curd from the Mares milke is accounted a remedy against bloody fluxes and collicks say Dioscor Gale Avicenna and Haly. Meal made of their teeth sprinkled on the privities cures many cures their greefs The teeth that a Horse first sheds tied to infantes eases them in breeding teeth and with more successe if they have not toucht the ground Sextus writes that with a touch they heal the toothake for hee adds that if an infant kisse a horse mouth the pain of the teeth is not felt nor will a horse bite an infant The tongue in wine is a present remedy for the Milt saith Pliny The Heartbone neerly resembles dogsteeth It scarifies or opens a sore or if you take a tooth out of a dead horses jaw it helps a sore shoulder Plini saith infallibly The Liver laid up in a cedar chest tempered with wine of chies and water prevents the consumption of the Liver De Milt drunke in fresh water cast forth a dead child saith Pliny Their stones dride and drunke provoke lust Bunches in their knees and the hard skin of their hoofs or grown ground to pouder and given in vineger are good against the falling sicknesse as Dioscor Galen and Pliny write The hayr tied at a doore keepes flies and the worms called cniphes out as Rhasis and Albertus have delivered Three Horse bristles tied in so many knots within sores in the privities helpe them The ashes of the same taken out of the head or belly stops a flux of blood Warts are taken away if you bind a horse hayr about them because by tying that that feeds them is stopt and so they dry away The ashes of their Hoofs smeare with oyl and water on wax kernels and apostumate mattery swelling in any part scatters and removes them and also bunches if mingled with hot urine The same being taken in with wine and water helps against the stone in de bladder Hierocles write scrapings pourd into a horses nostrils provokes him to stale Their sweat drunk with urine in a bath drives out belly wormes and serpents if you will trust the promises of some mixt with wine and drunke by one great with child makes her miscarry If a knife or sword warme out a wound be dipt therein it is so infected saith Albertus that the wounded place will never leave bleeding till the party dy Their fome newly taken from them infuse in oyl of roses helps eares though never so sore Gesner commends their spittle as a remedy for the pestilentiall burning in the jaws that sometimes in summer troubles especially shouldiers Let the patient saith hee gargle horses spittle in his mouth that is provenderd with oats or barly then bruse together living crabs presse out the moysture and wash it again with the same if you cannot get living ones sprinkle the pouder of crabs dried in an oven after you have washt it with horses spittle Give to them that are so far gone in a consumption of the lungs that they are given over an horses some or spitle in warme water three dayes together the sick person shall without delay be healed but the horse shall dy As for their stale and dung let it suffice to have said that mingled with smiths forge water it helps the falling sicknesse the same sod in white wine is used against the collicke and the bite of a Scorpion and in water good against a flux Being fresh and put to the nose stanches blood especially if stird with chalk and sharp vineger mingled with Egg-shell beaten to powder it prevents the over-bleeding of a wound Their breath as some feign is a preservative against the plague The differences or kinds of Horses are manifold the cheefe are borrow from places parts and certain accidents From place those of Acarnan are said to be greatest whence it grew a proverb when men spake of any huge thing The Aethiopian Horses the wild I beleeve are reported to be wingd and horned and can endure no heat Those from Agrigentum were use to be sent of old to the Graecian games and went away still conquerors The Alanican were fleetest and strongest Probus had one as men say of such swiftnesse that between sun and sun hee went an hundred mile and would hold out so ten dayes together as wee have said The English are most pacers few trotters saith Polydore Virgil. The Apaniensers in Sytia kept above 30000 Mares and 300 they sent out for breed Those of Apulia are cried up for the best war-horses saith Varro and Volateran Those of Arabia specially the Mares in a day and a night or thereabout can rid an 100 mile ground if we beleeve Vartomannus Arcadia is famous for breed of mules tween-horses and shee-asses whence it hath the name Hippobatos The Armenian are of the Parthian race but have greater heads saith Absyrtus The Gennets of Austria are small having a soft turning in the opening of their thighs have been in great request but are unfit for warre The Barbaries out of Tunis and Numidia are swiftest Those of Bengala are so hard hooft that they need not be shod though they travell among rocks and mountains In Bisnagar they are sould for 400 or 500 peeces of gold and sometimes 800 because they are fetcht elsewhere The Britones have short thighs and eares Those of Burgundy most patient The Calabrian best travellers Those of Cappadocia best of all They used to pay yearly to the Persian a thousand five hundred Those of Caraja are brought by merchants into India the natives use to cut two or three joynts from their tayl that they may not swinge their rider Those of Biscay are whitish brought into the
his horn is so sharp and strong that what ever he strikes at he shatters or peirces it through There was one seen in the service of the great Cham of Tartary in the Kingdome of Lambris They are lesse then Elephants holding their head downwards like a Swine of a prickling tongue wherewith they get what they meet with black eyed and very like the Rhinoceros Lewis of Barthema of Bononia writes thus of the Unicorns seen by him There are Dens on the one side of the Temple at Mecca wherein are kept two Unicorns that are showen as the manner is for a rarity Concerning the shape The greater resembled a Horse-colt of thirty months old his horn that he bears on his fore-head is about three ells in length the other was a year old his horn grown to four hand breadth The colour of the beast somewhat darker then that of a Sumpter or Pack-horse headed like a Hart short-necked and thin-haired thereabout short-mained and that hanging only on one side Small and slender-legged like a Hinde The feet a little cloven afore Goat-hoofed the feet hairy on the right side He seems feirce and of a nature affecting lovelinesse I adde not what Garzias hath out of Hortus They are said to be found in the Arabian Deserts and to have been seen there by Merchants as also between the Cape of Good-Hope and that they call the Currentes Some are in the Kingdom Basma and Lambris some in the utmost parts of Asia in the Province Macinus between the mountains of India and Cathay where the Serici inhabite Some in the new world The Horn is shewen in many places the most famous are S. Denys in France Venetia Spain Utrecht Helvetia Denmark Hampton-Court in England Windsor and the Gedansian of Empiricus That at S. Denys is of greatest note being rugged not polished blackish and nearest those Ancients describe Writers differ about the Unicorns horns lenth Renodaeus makes him as long as a mans hight he takes it on trust as we do Baccius and Marinus bring it to six cubits Golnitzius his measure is six foot and an half Bellonius makes it up full seven foot Nor do they agree about the weight Cardan saith one hath been seen to weigh seventeen pound and three quarters Golnitzius rises it to five and twenty I with Bellonius should judge the horn to weigh eighteen pound having poysed it in my hand Baccius thinks the Venetian are right Marinus that they are longer then old ones nor so writhed as Aelians and so thin that they cannot be drunk out of Coloured like a smooth Harts-horn and pale not black They are reported at the siege of Bysantium to be conveyed to the Venetian Common-wealth with twelve breast-plates of Imperial Cavaliers The Spanish one hath nothing singular a piece whereof Phil. IV. presented to Cardinal Francis Barbarine an eminent man and most courteous to strang Gentery That at Utrecht is as long as that at Paris and reasonable great much wreathed at top and then growing straiter toward the bottome The outside is of a sand-colour the inside is whither It is held in great account and is shown for a right one so that Colonia Agrippina hath bid a great summe of gold for it That of the Helvetians was found in the year M.D.XX. at the mouth of the River Arula near Brugia white it is within yellowish without without writhings two cubits long but as sweet as musk especially if it be near the fire The Danish one is kept in Fredericks-Burgs Castle above seven Roman-foot long if we except that part within the hollow which Bartholine conceives to be above a foot it is seven fingers about writhed all along and sharp-pointed at top the colour mixt of white and ash-colour and in some of the spaces channeld and chamfered with black and duskish streaks That of the Venetian Merchants was brought out of Germany promising by the bright and divers colour'd shape that it is a right one and the rather because there fall pieces from it if you shave it not like teeth and shavings that can be crumbled but there come thence shavings that are clammy and yeelding as any other cut hornes I can say litle of the Gedanensian one Empiricus returning from Constantinople not long ago magnified it highly More about this beast Aelian tells us saying that among all beasts he hath the must absur'd vile voyce that if other beasts come to him he is gentle but ever fighting with those of his owne kind the males do not onely quarrell but they also with the females so that they kill one other His whole body is very strong but his horn invincible He seeks deserts and goes ever alone wandring At coupling-time the male is tamer and feeds quietly with the female when that time is over and the female begins to swell the male returns to his former fiercenesse and betakes him to his wandring lovelinesse Men say that there were some of their young ones brought to the Prasian-King and that on feast and triumph-dayes they were put together to fight to shew their strength for no man ever remembers that one growen up hath been taken So far Aelian Some add that this beast loves young Virgins so that if one spreads but her lap as he comes he will lay his head there and fall in a slumber and is so taken For their use all know how they are commended for the soverain vertue of their horne against venome for where poyson is it sweats and drops stand on it and so as some think the right horn is knowne Aloysius Mundella commends it against the bite of a mad dog and other mischievous beasts as also of worms The ancient Indian Kings who first arrived at the knowledge of this horne made cups of it for themselves that drinking out of them they might fence themselves against poyson drunkennesse cramp falling sicknesse and other malignant diseases A Iew of Venice made a circle on a table with that horn and cast then a Scorpion and a Spider within it who had not the power to passe that circle after that they being pluckt by it a hand high whether by the shadow of it or the vertue flowing from it they were both kill'd within the space of an hour No wonder then that it is so valued that German Merchants ask'd for one of them 90000 crowns and the Pope setting up a kind of an Apothecaries shop in the Vatican gave 12000 pieces of gold to the Epidaurian Merchants for a piece of an Unicorns horne of the which Austin Ricchus the Popes then chief Physitian used to put now a scruple now 10 grains in wine or cordiall water and administred it with great successe And thus shall serve now to have spoken of the Unicorn we shall say more elsewhere Concerning horn'd Asses I find them cried up in three places namely in India Scythia and Africa Herodotus mentions the African Aelian saith that
horns very stubborn and not easily broken The tongue when pluckt out will pant a whole day The skins that hang down the throat are called palezar the dew-lap See the Greek names in Varrinus The teeth are continued and twice changed Those of two years old change teeth saith Pliny They want the upper-row they chew therefore with the four fore-teeth as hath been said Their peezel is very stiffe They have two udders between their legges Pliny saith four calling it seems the teats which are four udders Their arse gapes saith Horace Their taile is long the hair short The flesh dry and duskish The sinews hard and stubborn though not so long as the Bulls The blood full of strings therefore hastily congeals and hardens The ham-joynt not so fast as that of other beasts therefore he drags his feet more especially when he is lean and old It is said they have a stone in the head which they spit out when they look to be slaughtered Austin reports they have one also in the liver and reins Pliny saith there is a bone in his heart The milt is very long and blacker then the Swines especially when he grows old The reins resemble mans each as it were made up of many The ancles greater then the Camels In the Heifers second ventricle is found a rough sand-stone round as a ball very light Aldrovand had two of them in his study one reddish the other black for that was taken out of a red this out of a black Ox since it is sprung from haires that they lick in in chewing the cud as it sometimes happens they with licking themselves swallow something that gathers into an ovall chapt being mixt with flegme wee need not discourse much of the place where they are found For their meat they devour all that the earth yeelds especially grasse çitisus pease knot-grasse sedge willow oke-leaves olive-bows reed black-elder vines barly hirse wheat acornes date-kernels wild olive missle-toe these the most delight in All know grasse to be their feed in Summer and hay in Winter In the province of Narbon in Fount-Orges grows an herb so gratefull to Oxen that they will plunge themselves over head and eares to seek it They will do the like in the River Loïr about Veluin and in the Sebusian Fish-ponds And in the ditches pools and black waters thereabout grows a grasse with long reddish leaves flooting on the water after which they are so greedy that they will wade belly-deep and duck in the whole head to feed thereon which fattens them strangely and the Cows that fed there yeeld much more milk then neerhand Citisus breeds much and sweet milk but while it flourishes it is not so good but dries up milk Pease are commended but not sowed in March because it makes them wild-headed Pliny says that not onely that that is sowen in March is hurtfull to oxen but also that that is sowen in May is hurtfull to Oxen but also that that is sowen in Autumne makes them sleepy steep it and it is corrected Therefore Democritus prescribes such to be given them monthly in their drinke to strengthen them five bushells serves a yoak of oxen Clave grasse or three leaved fattens a carrion lean ox and cures a sick one Therefore wild Trifoly is diligently sowen in many parts of Spain especially in Valentia Yet it must be given sparingly else it dries milke and turns all the meat into blood fat and flesh Lotus gives best nourishment and sweetest and being sowen once in fallow ground flourishes many yeares after Elm-leaves especially those of Attinia the Romans held much of If you give it them dayly and then another sort of leaves they will be weary of them Virgil mentions willows nor hath Lucretius forgot them Fig-leaves if they may be had are very good for them yet oke-leaves and wild olive that is not thorny are thought better Black elder leaves bring a flush of milk Barly chaffe and that of other grain Hirse is sowen in Italy for them saith Porta fitches are given them in stead of pease ground in a hand-mill and weakned a little in water in Spaine Baetica A bushell of pulse serves to put an Ox into good case weakned three dayes in river or sea-water it grows sweet and then dried again is laid up for this use Acornes are advised to be gathered after seed time and cast into water and a half bushell to be given in spring to each Ox It is meet about the fall of the leafe to give each yoke of oxen 24 bushells The greater make them unhealthfull and when ever you give it if they have it not 30 dayes together they get the spring scab The Babylonians give their Oxen datekernels soakt in water and to their sheep They are fattened by misletoe They feed also on fish among the Paeonae who dwell by the Prashian marishes Neither do they abstain from Hemlock whether green or dry Nor doth eating of frogs do them any harme Briefly they delight to drinke clear water nor doth muddy hurt them About their manner of feeding see Aldrovand and writers of husbandry For their age the Cow lives 15 years at most the male 20 they are at their best at five Their age is knowen by changing their teeth the foreteeth they cast within a year and eight or ten months then after six months by degrees they loose the next till within three yeare they have changed them all when they are best disposed and so hold out to fifthteen At best their teeth stand fair long and even but growing old they diminish wax black and rot The Helvetians judge of their Cows age by certain circles almost at top of their horns they are three at five years old after more Some thinke they get a circle with every calving About their gendring lust coupling and calving I meet with these observations The Bull feeds with the Cow only in engendring time they couple with the elder twice a day with the yonger oftner and that with one and the same and quietly A geld one hath egendred saith Aristotle One Bull may serve 15 Cows Varro allows many more Hee abstaines from the cows that are with calf at first and as it were voluntarily divorces himself as it is to be seen in Epire especially where for most part hee is not to be seen for three months but feeds by himself The Cows salacity is famous See Aristotle about the excesse and signes of their lust as also Aelian H. A. l. 10. c. 27. About what heats then see Columella R. R. l. 6. thither I refer the reader for I list not to translate such stuffe The Cows are knowen to be with calf when their termes cease within 2 3 4 half a months space They goe 10 months and in the tenth they calve they bring forth nothing alive sooner saith Pliny Some say they calve when the tenth
woollen cloath and so three dayes renewed and the third day an ox-gall is to be shaven and the shavings mixt with oyl and put in a linnen cloath and three dayes together layd on and then she shall conceive Finally it is strange that is written that some Egyptian women to become fat take in a bath 9 dayes a chirat of Cows-gall dissolved in Cow-pisse About the calves-gall understand that with vineger warmed it takes away Nits it lesses the chops of the eyes bruized with hony and especially Mirrhe and Safran and is very good to put into the eare with a Snakes-slough sprinkled with lees mixt with oyl it drives away gnats The stone in an Ox-gall the Philosophers call it Alcheron it is like a ring bruised to pouder and snuffed up helps the sight and prevents eye-rheums and is good for the falling-sicknesse if you take thereof the quantity of a pea with the juyce of into the nostrills The hide and glue also hath it's use in Phisick Burnt it heals kibes especially out of an old shoe with hony it eats off cankers in sores the ashes of an old soal burnt helps against a bruise from a pinching shoe Glew sod out of Ox-hides especially Bulls and that out of their ears and pizles of very soverain nor is any thing better against burnings But it is often counterfaited nothing more taken out of other leather to cozen you That of Rhodes is truest and therefore used by Painters and Phisitians The best at this day called German is of a light-red-colour very hard britled as glasse and blackish and twice as deere as the other It is called Xylocolla or wood-glue because it is used in gluing wood together others call it Taurocolla or Bulls-glue we owe the invention of it to Daedalus it joyns things firmer then any other thing can Melted in vineger it heals the scab adding lime-wit if it be not gone too far weakened in vineger and with brimstone boild on a soft fire to the thicknesse of hony and stird boyling with a fig-tree sprig applied twice a day it cures itch melted and dissolved the third day it heals and closest wounds made by iron Mixt with vineger and hony it removes Nits It helps teeth boyld in water and rubed on and presently taken of again and then the teeth washt with wine wherein hath been sod sweet Pomegranet-roots drunk with three cups with hot water it helps spitting of blood as also the hot collique and belly-ake if layd on The horne the top of it burnt two spoonfulls weight with hony swallowed in pills helps the Ptisick or short-breath or wheezing as much burnt to pouder with three cups of hot water and a litle vineger helps the Spleen taken three dayes in if fasting The hoof is also medicineable boyled and eaten with mustard it resists poyson burnt and drunk in pottage wine or other liquour it restores milk to womens dried breasts the smoke thereof kills or chases away Mice The Ancledust drunk with hony brings away worms with mulled vineger it lessens the Spleen with wine it fastens the teeth It is frivolous but not to be left out saith Pliny if it be but to please women that the ankle of a white heifer sod 40 dayes and nights till dissolved rub'd on with a linnen cloath makes a clear smooth skin The Hips burnt and drunk stopt fluxes of blood The thin skin moyst from the calving heals a sore face The Stone found in the head drunk out of the same water that the ox drinks helps effectually the head-ake The milke being thick and fat passes not so easily through us yet Pliny saith it loosens the belly and is drunk in the spring to purge because it comes from many herbs whereon the Cows feed hartily It works out poyson especially that that corrodes and inflames particularly it helps against Doryenium Colchicum Hemlock and the sea-hare Warmed and gargled it soon allayes the pain and swelling of the almonds under the eares Taken warme from the Cow it helps an exulcerated stomack A cupfull with so much deer-sewet tried and moyst pitch and Scythian red-oker helps strangely a consumption A black Cows milk with pouder of Sesamum is good to drink for a women that after child-birth vomits blood after fourty dayes The same boyled mitigates and removes fluxus and desire to stool if newly milk and two parts boyled away for the strangury a little hony must be added and if the pain be great lay on the navell dust of Harts-horn or Ox gall mixt with cummin-seed with flesh up-goared Nor are these the prescriptions only of Aëtius Galen and Pliny but our late Physitians prescribe the like and therein they quench a gad of steel nine times and apply it hot to the patient or glister wise Hippocrates prescribed it of old and others mixt with liquour For he when the guts were wounded and the breath came forth beneath apparently by the wound and the breasts emptied advised it to be given with a like quantity of milke wine and water And Gesner also testifies that some cried it up if the liquour mixt with wine and milke were drunk certain dayes in Maries-bath Butter although Pliny say it was a food prized only by Barbarians and poor common people yet Galen and Diosco and others proclaim great vertue to be in it Vitalis de Furno Cardinal and a famous Physitian saith that butter is naturally warm and moyst heat is predominant in it it is viscous and oylie Oft eaten it moystens the stomack and make loos-bodied softens the breast cures ulcers in breast and bowells especially when fresh and new agreeing to mans complexion helps apostumate breasts and lungs it being the proper quality to ripen disperse and cleanse all superfluous humours especially if eaten with hony and sugar Butter resists poyson supples the members softens and helps smeared on eye-smart disperses and ripens impostumes eases sore breasts and lungs and gripings of the bowels supples and loosens shriveled up sinews It is a speciall remedy against inward poyson if hartily drunk melted in hot milk after you have drunk venome for by its fatnesse it stops the passages that the venome reach not suddenly the heart But new butter is thus praise-worthy not so the old c. Thus far the Cardinall Cheese is good against flaxes strangury and colique Hippocrates uses the same against his third sort of consumption Donatus writes that he gave a pellet of Sicilian cheese dipt in hony to a boy troubled with wormes Of the whey hote or cold we shall elsewhere discusse certain it is that it thins and cleanse away the thick humours and brings down the belly to this last purpose the ancients have used it often especially in those which they would purge gently as the melancholy and those that had the falling sicknesse the leprous the scald and those that brake out with blisters over the whole body above all it is good for shortwinded
very great and there are of the race yet left But now they desire yearlings for breed but those of two years are better In Eubaea the oxen are almost all white whence Poëts call Eubaea Arggroboaeon silver-oxed In Galata a hill of Africk the oxen when oldest are not so great as those of eight moneths in Italy saith Leonius In or neare the region of the Garamantes they feed praeposterously for if they direct their mouths strait to their pasture their horns bending downward hinder them The Helvetian oxen specially those by Zofinga a town of Bern are prayzed for tender flesh In India there are oxen with one and with three horns and whole-hoof'd they are as tall as Camells their horns foure foot broad One of them was brought to Ptolomy that held three pitchers full of water They run there with horses being equally fleet perhaps Pliny means these speaking of Indian wood-bulls greater then wild ones swifter then all others yellow blew-eyed their hair turning thwart their chaps gaping to their eares their horns wagging their hide as hard as a flint and wound-free they hunt all wild beasts they are taken only in pits and kill themselves with their fiercenes I know not whether they are those the Sangiaci and Bassae use by Damascus with thin tayls and hair valued each at four or five Ducats Wee read also that in India is an Ox called in their native tongue Ignaragna near the Fort of the Holy Ghost so called and elsewhere where it is lesse cold of a monstrous bulk feeding on grasse that is red far bigger then our oxen skin'd like the Elephant having two armes near the breast the teats hidden wherewith shee suckles her young headed and mouthed as ours sweet of flesh that the Indians much long after yeelding fat like butter wherewith they season their food the bones as firme as ivory The Umbrian Oxen chiefly by the river Clitumnus are famous they are the greatest in Italy and most white The Sabine are also cried up there was one of old bred by a househoulder of a strange size and shape whose hornes were many ages kept for a miraculous monument in the porch of Dianaes Temple The Leutrican Oxen their hornes and eares are alike and of apeece In a Province of Catay are white and black ones tayl'd as a horse but bushier and long bearing fine hairs like feathers of great value which the Cavaliers hang on their lance top counting it an ensigne of high gentility the hornes as they lift up their head reach to their tayle the hornes are so great that the inhabitants use them in stead of buckets The Mysian have no horns Among the Negros the cows are all black or white or mixt none red They winter them by the marsh Maeotis among the Nomades and summer them in the plain fields Of the Oxen some have no horns some they saw off The Poeonian bulls are shagged bodied especially on breast and chin and carry so great horns that scarce three or foure quarts of wine can fill them whereof the Poeonian Kings and Nobles make cups tipp'd with ivory and silver saith Theopompus Hungary abounds so with them that Sigismundus Baron of Heberstein affirmed that he saw one onely way toward Vienna driven above 80000 in one year Comandu a Persian region so called of a city there hath many vast ones all white short and blunt-horned bunch'd-backed like Camels whence they become so strong and fit for carriage Such are also in Quivira The Bulls there are wild yellow low crookbacked great mained and hanging their flesh good wholesome and not unpleasant the Natives eat the tayl drink the blood weare the hides The Phaenician Cows are so tall that the tallest shepheards milk standing lower men must have a footstool In Phrygia and Erythraea the Oxen wag the hornes as the ears saith Aristot. and Aelian In Norwey Island Gothland Feronia Oxen are wilde untameable and long-bearded The hunters skulk among the trees and when they are stroken they either revenged or kill themselves There is also a Sea-cow a great strong furious dangerous monster spawning the like not above two at once oftner but one which it tenders and caries carefully about where-ever she swims or goes aland shee carries her fry 10 moneths she is known by cutting of her tayl to have lived 130 years On some Northeren-Coasts they have teeths like Elephants In Caricta a Scotch Province above Galloway are Oxen of tender and sweet flesh but the fat never thickens but slows like oyl About Torona lastly are some that a few dayes afore calving have no milk but at other times are flush they go ten months with calve Of the Tartarian Oxen tall as Elephants black and white-hayred and hanging thick on their shoulders like Lions three foot long soft as silk I have spoken already As also of the Tartarian that Scaliger calls Syrian that have no dew-laps Thus far of their differences in a promiscuous way Hetherto belongs the beast called in Corgo Empalanga shaped like an ox and of the like bulke onely he carries his head and neck aloft like a Stag the horns strait and long knotty at top bending a litle inwards wilde but not harmfull nor fierce and might be brought to the plow if the inhabitants had the wit to use them As for monsters there was seene at Millian and Satura a calf with two heads at a village of Thuringia one with six feet two heads and but one passage and one hath been seen with seven feet and a bunch of flesh on the side also one nose and eare like a man with two heads and faces and double-bodied onely two hind-feet and faced like a Lamb. Anno 1551 was seen at Basil of the Rauraci an Ox with five feet such as we saw once in London in England and another with a horn in the neck and short legs like a dwarfe You shall here also have the print of a monstrous calfe with two bodies upright and with five eares ARTICLE II. Of wild-Oxen POINT I. Of the Wild-Ox or Bugle WId-Oxen in Greek Agrioi that differ from the wild Agrayloi in this that these though tame and bred of such yet running loose among the hills a pleasure are left to feed in woods and fields but those are not wild so much from the nature of the place as their own naturall disposition such are Bugle Bison The Urus or Bugle Macrobius makes a French and Aldrovand a German name For Ur signified among the old Dutch wild or great vast and strong Servius yet will have it to be Greek fetching it from Oroi the mountains The Poles at least about Mafovia Samogitia call him Tur which Gesner thinks to be the Tarand among the Ancients The Liturnians calls him Zumbro Whether it be Iphicrates his thezes we shall inquire elsewhere S. Hieronymus calls him Bubalus or Buffe as also Martialis and the unskilful common Romans saith Pliny Authours differ somewhat about
they are great bodied thick thighed full and short shouldered bending eared small headed thick long and bright necked high and broad horned They are almost all white In Winter they live on Pine-bark Mosse and Poplar-boughs The skins are carried by great shipfuls into Germany and yield great gaine The Caspian Goats are whitest not horned and as big as Horses So soft is their hair that it may compare with Milesian-wool so that the Caspian Priests and the richest make it their wear In Cephalenia the Goats drink not dayly but gape and take in the wind Theophrastus therefore saith they drink not in six months In Cilicia and about the Syrtes they are as shorn At Damascus they have long eares manifold teats and are very fruitful The owners carry fourty or fifty up and down to sell their milke and they will milk them where you please in your dining-room though it be three stories high afore your eyes in tin vessels At Narbon they have broad and long ears In Illyria they are not cloven-footed they bring sometimes three four or five at a birth and give a gallon and a half of milk The same is said of the Indian near the City Tarnassuri and of the Affrican at the Promontory of the green-head Xaverius the Jesuit testifies that he hath seen at Amborna an Hee-goat suckling little kids in that corrupted History of Christ and Peter which the Authour wrote in the Persian language He had but one udder and gave a great sop of milk dayly The Mambron Shee-goat in the Region of Damiata they may ride with saddle and briddle and other Horse-furniture the ears dangle to the ground the horns hang downward and turn up again under the mouth Pharos an Island in the Aegean-Sea breeds Goats coloured like the Deer and greater by much with an horn twelve handfull long straight having but on knag reaching right forth In Sardinia their skins are hot in winter and cold in summer like the Musmones And some are swifter then any beast Among the Monsters we give hereafter the figure of one with three horns ARTICLE V. Of the wild-Goats in generall WEe are now to treat of wild-Goats both generally and specially with many names whereof we meet among the Greeks as Aix agrios Wild-Goat These have the wit with Dictany to draw arrows out of their bodies those namely that live in Candy and on the hill Ida. Aristotle denies there are any in Africa Virgil affirms it who takes the wild for those that are liker tame which Varro saith are a breed of the tamer Wee call them Roes Aigagros Oppian takes for a peculiar kind called Camozza about Trent The Aigokeroas or Capricorn is a wild wood-goat of a severall kind in Suidas Dâ—rkas Hermolaus conceives to be a divers kind but it seems to be but another name Scaliger takes Dorcas for a kid Dorcus for a Roe However it seems to have the name from sharp-sightednes for it hath a moysture within the bowelles that helps the sight The name is used in the Canticles The Dorcalides are short-tayled Proches-Gaza turns a Doe having the name from Proixesthai the swiftnes Pâ—oox from fearfullnes the Epithite that Homer gives the Hare It is as swift as a whirlewind yellow haired white tayled the eyes white and blew the eares stuck with long hair it swims very swiftly and with the feet can stem a streame it delights in lakes where it seeks repast among the bulrushes The Nebros some make a fawn some a kind of goat of Solinus a Doe Kolos is a Scythian wild-goat of bignes between a Deer and a Ram of a bright body very swift drinking with the nostrils and holds the water there many dayes and can make long shift in dry pasture With the Latines Caprea is a Rodi Rupicapra a wild-goat living among rocky places as the name gives it They love to clime high and to live on the loftiest mountains where your eye can hardly reach them yet if they be pursued by beast or man it can cast it self headlong from the steepest crags and yet help themselves so with their horns that they catch no harme They fall out often about the females in coupling time By consent of all they excell the tame in goodnes of tast savourines and nourishment in delicacy of temper easines of digestion and in paucity of excrements yet is their flesh somewhat drier therefore the Arabes invented the boyling them in oyl to make them juicier Yet some thinke that what is sod in oyl becomes dry and looses the glutinousnes as Psathuron and Kauron As for their use in physique wild Goats-flesh is good food for those who have the bloody flux The liver either unrosted or beaten to powder helps the cholique The steame thereof boyled in salt water helps thick-sighted eys Burnt and sprinkled on it stanches blood especially if you snuf up the powder The blood with sea-palme takes away the hair It helps to an easing by stool The gall is soveraign against venemous bites The same helps against bloodshotten and dim eyes and against ruggednes of the cheeks and eye-lids with conserve of roses or bruised with juice of leeks and droped warm into the nostrils it takes away the tinckling of the head with Athenian hony it eases the pain of the jaws and cures the exulceration of the pizzle The dung dried stamped and sifted and taken in a cup of hypocras takes away the yellow-Jaundice ARTICLE VI. Of the wild-Goats in particular POINT I. Of the Roe-Deer Fallovv-Deer Bucks and Doe THe kindes of wild-Goats are the Rupicapra c. The Rupicapra or Dorcos in Greek Aigastros or Aigagros that is Wild-goat It is of the same greatnesse with the shaggy-goat only a little taller and in shape liker the tall wild-beasts Bellonius takes it for a Buck. The colour is between dark and red it inclines more to the red in Summer then in Winter to the dusky But Scaliger saith it is in Summer yellowish in Winter ash-colour Gesner saw one black and white Some are all white but few It is red-eyed The ears are longer then the Rams and carnation coloured and on either side a streak above the eyes from the root of the horns straight to the end of the mouth and ending in the upper-lip The fore-head marked with a kind of star The upper part of the tail hairy black and round and as long as that of a Buck. The horns blackish nine or ten fingers long rough with knotty ringlets none in the hooked part which is smooth and sharp like a hook Almost paralel rising in equal spaces firm only at beginning only a thumbs length hollow and rounder then those of the tame Some say they can as we see Goats scratch their backs with them It is note-worthy what mischief they do themselves by that scratching they are thought to delight so in the tickling that they fasten the horn-tip so in
his shape The horns are black and to be seen in most libraries like a swords blade at top diverse according to their age both in length bredth and number of knobs Wee give you here the images of two of them But Aldrovand himself durst define whether they are Indian Asses horns or no. But since the Aethiops called Sili used them for weapons against the Struthiophagi or Estridge-eaters and they are very hand and beamy long sharp-pointed and hollow they seeme to belong to the Oryx The Egyptians fain many things of him that they know when the Dog-star arises and then cry out that they gaze on the star and adored it like a God whether by a peculiar sympathy or that they know cold weather is past which they cannot well endure He seems to despise the Sun and Moon they dung against the rising Sun and never drink Columella and Martial mention the Orus but I beleeve it is not the same with this The later calls him Cavage the former reckons him among the beasts kept in warrens or parks for food Hee is said by Oppian to be wild a great foe to wild beasts and milke white So different are the relations about the Orus which must be a double kind one fearfull the other fierce Some in India are said to have four horns Ambr. Paréus T. 1. l. 5. c. 5. mentions a wild beast in some Island of the Red-sea called by the Arabs Kademotha by the inhabitants called Parasoupi as great as a mule and headed alike haired like a Beare but not so dark-coloured but yellowish footed like the Hart having two lofty horns but not beamed akin to the Unicorns horn The natives being bitten by any venomous beast are cured forthwith by drinking the water wherein the horn hath lien soaking certain dayes ARTICLE VII Of the Hart or Deer THe Latine name Cervus is taken from the Greek Kerata horns The Greeks give him very many names as Elaphos because of his nimblenesse or his delight to be about lakes or waters or because he drives away the serpent with the smell of his horn who rubs it on purpose against a stone to raise the sent and Beirix Bredos c. The Hinds first fawning they call Ptookas that is Procas the Calf or Fawn Nebros c. The Deer or Hart is cloven-footed tong-hoofed soft-haired and hollow within if you beleeve Junius which makes him swim well He is light coloured sandy reddish yet there are white ones as Sertorius his Hind which as he perswaded the Spaniards was propheticall No beast carries greater horns The Hind hath none ordinarily though some have been seen horned by Maximilian the Emperor and by Scaliger The Fawn of a year old hath beginnings of horns budding short and rough The second year he is called a pricket and hath plain horns called spellers or pipers The third year he is a sorell his horns branching once and sox increase to the sixt year Wee say there are in a stages head the Burre or round roll next the head then the Beam or main horn then the Browanteliers next above the Bezanteliers next the royall above the surroyall top In a Bucks head are Burre Beam Braunch Advancers Palm Spellers The fourth year the Buck is a Sore the fifth year a Buck of the first head the sixt he is a Buck or great Buck. But the branching is very different William Duke of Bavaria hath two each horn hath one and twenty branches Albertus speaks of eleven such in Germany Aemilian saw in the Duke of Ferrara his store-house a Hart little lesse then a Horse and so branched as the German heads At Antwerp is one with 15 branches Other hornes are hollow except at top the Harts solied throughout others cleave to the bone the Harts sprout onely out of the skin No beast casts the horns so as hee The horn is as firme and hard as a stone growing old it is lighter especially in the open air and sometimes moyst and dry again Gesner hath observed in a grown Hart at top of the horn two three or five branches and the beame six fingers broad beside the antlers and spellers below and he hath marked between the brain-pan and the horns litle bones or double-bony knobs about two fingers long smooth and the shorter the older the Hart is Wee English divide the Deer into red and fallow Deer among the red wee call the male a Stag the shee an Hind the young Calves among the fâ—llow Deer wee call the hee a Buck the shee a Doe the young Fawns And they all differ in hornes and in some they are grown together Gesner saith he hath seen a Stags-speller of 9 inches and of one of three years old with the speller of 18 inches Those wee have mentioned are smooth white not rugged They cast their horns yearly at a certain time in the Spring One hath been taken in whose horn green Ivy grew It is said that if you gueled them their horns fade away Their face is fleshy the nose flat the neck long the nostrils fourefold and with as many passages their musles slender and weake the ears as cut and parted as no other beasts have They that are about Argenusa on the hill Elapsus they have foure teeth on each side both below grinders and besides two other above greater in the male then the female they bend all downward and seeme bent They have all live-worms in the head bred under the tongue in a hollow of a turning joynt that joyns the neck to the head others as great bred in the flesh at least â—0 some have seen more and severed though some have none Some say Wasps are bred within theirs eye-bone and fly out thence The blood is like water having no strings but is curdled as many have observed with Baldus Angelus The eyes are great the heart as great as uses to be in all timerous creatures Divers write diversly of a stone in the corner of the eye called Belzahart or Bezaar Scaliger denies it that there is any stone there till the Deere be an 100 years old and then it begins to grow and waxes harder then a horn swelling out of the bones and over the face where it bunches out it is round and shining yellow and streaked with black so light that it scarce abides the touch you may see it withdrawn it self Scribonius calls it the eye-filth Almost in all Deers hearts are found bones the greater in the older sometimes shaped like a crosse interfering I have seen them saith Iordanus as big as a pigeons egg and framed of plates and which is pleasant to see break them and you find a bone in the midst like the other heart-bones about which those shells clings the heat of the heart ingenders them They are found from the midst of August to the middle of September Brasavolus calls it a sinew
them run made Green pasture hurts them They eat flesh also mens carcases nay they spare not their own pigs nor hens and geese in winter They root up worms they feed on snails and wood-tartoyses Sixty dayes will fatten them especially if you hold them fasting three dayes in the beginning To fatten them with figs till they burst again was Apicious his invention The English are a year fatning them which makes their pork firme and dainty where a Sow becomes so fat that she cannot stand nor goe but must be carried on a cart In Lusitania the farther end of Spain was a Swine killed two ribs whereof were sent to Lucius Volumnius the Senator that weighed three and twenty pound and there were two foot and two fingers from the skin to the bone Varro saw in Arcadia a Sow so fat that she could not rise and that a Rat had eaten into her flesh and made a nest therein and laid her young ones there Gesner relates the like of Basil. Thirst in Summer troubles them Grape-kernels in wash makes them drunk They gender from eight months old to their seventh or eigth year They litter twice a year and sometimes twenty at a litter they go four months with pig They are prone to cast their farrow the pigs are piged with teeth saith Nigidius One Boar serves ten Sowes They couple when the Moon wains and that often and aforenoon commonly when the Boar of rages and will tear a man with his tusks especially one in white cloaths They litter fewest at first time more at next and though old they bate not they pig eight and ten sometimes eighteen at a time some say as many as they have teats A white Sow is thought most fruitful The Winter-pigs are small and thrive not The Helvetians prefer March-pigs In hot Regions winter ones are best The Sow having littered gives to the first pig the former teats being fullest of milk Every pig knows it's teat and keeps to that alone Take away the pigs she grows barren leave her one only she brings it well up If you give acorns to a Sow big with pig you hazard the casting her farrow Swine hold antipathy with the Elephant who also cannot endure their grunting A Wolf also fears it and dars not venture on an herd of them Salamanders they devour without danger Ointment of Amaracus is bane to them The Weesel and they are foes Hemlock kills them In Scythia Scorpions dispatch them with one stroke The Horse abhors his filthy smell ugly grunting and filthy breath They cast not their teeth but after eating new corn their teeth are ever weak nature so punisheth their otherwise untameable greedinesse If they loose not their eyes nor eat themselves dead they live fifteen some twenty years The disease that most troubles them is a swelling like hailstons that lurks unseen while they live but cut one up it shews it self nor is there scarce any without three at the least whereto those are more liable the flesh of whose thighs neck and shoulders are moyst we call them meazles They cleave to the lower part of the tongue a Hog is knowen to be meazled by the bristles plucked from the back if the roots be bloody If they come out of a hot into a cold place and are suffered to ly down if you stir them not there is a kind of convulsion in all their members They are also troubled with hog-lice and in Summer unlesse you often stir them they are taken with a lethargy They are troubled also with cough sqincy swellings and loosnesse unlesse they drink their fill they become shortbreathed They are most brutish filthy lustful and greedy by nature and seem to have a soul only as salt to keep them from stinking As bathing is mans delight so wallowing in the myre is theirs Gryllus in Plutarch praises their modesty and continence and prefers them afore men and women Though they are ravenous yet they will not eat a dead hog Their greedinesse is insatiable They know mans voyce They have been known to swim home again having been stollen and the ship cast away Their voice is grunting And to say the truth with Pliny no creature yields more matter for gluttony to work on then it near fifty several savoury dishes may be made of Swins-flesh Livy celebrats a feast of a Chalciden-Hoast set off with exquisite variety consisting hereof Homer tells of what value it was in the Heroique-age of the world the servants fed on lean the Masters on fat pork The solemnity of the Saturnals was celebrated almost with no other however no daintier food and their riot came to that height that they set whole ones and those stuffed on the table whence came the names Garden and Trojan-pork One part rosted another boyled and killed after a peculiar fashion The Pigs are counted daintiest Yet the Jews will not touch Swins-flesh it being forbidden by their Law the Arabians forbear it the Mahumetans also who feigne that Mice breed in Swins-snouts and the Moors Tartars and the Pessinunty of old But that of the Delphaci is too moyst and breeds raw humours Some kind is good of digestion by reason of the similitude it hath with mans body and nourisheth more then other food How strengthning it is the example of Wrestlers shews that used to feed thereon It is not so grosse as Beef Hippocrates condemns pork The Sow of a middle age is sweetest yonger if it ly long in the stomack corrupts Choyce ones come from Cicilia Apicius drest Pigs on sundry fashions whence the names of farcil liquaminous rost Vitellian Flaccian Laureate Frontaninian Oenogerate Celsilian and the rest The liver is preferred afore all the rest if the Hog be fed with figs dryed The Ancients prized the neck the gammon the flitch c. Of the flesh and the rest are made sausages puddings c. Of all which elsewhere God willing Of their Medicinal use Gesner treats most accuratly a decoction of their flesh helps against the poyson of the fly Buprestis The warm blood is good against warts smeared on keeping them from growing The grease of a male sucking pig gelt that especially about the rim of the belly is by Apothecaries used in their oyntments and by Physitians to soften and disperse humours The bones broken tied about bacon in boyling makes it firme on a sudden Bruised with broom it helps the pain in the knees With chalk smeared on it is good against wax-kernels Drunk in wine with salt on it helps cattel that have eaten Hemlock The Liver taken with wine helps against the biting of any venemous thing rosted it stops a loosnesse The Bladder provokes urine if it have not touched the ground laid on the privities Any thing about a Boar burned helps those who cannot hold their water The Stones kept long and stamped in Sows-milk is good for the falling-sicknesse The greatest
and thence the venome comes Q. Scaurus was the first who set their flesh afore his guests at his sumptious Feasts the Romans held them for delicates whence their Gliraria or Dormouse pens They are thought best and fattest from October to January and the younger the better meat In Phisick they have also place Eating the flesh frees from dog-hunger the fat provokes sleep if you annoint the soles of the feet therewith the dung drunke breaks the stone the same with vineger and rosemary cures shedding the hair the ashes cleare the eye-sight There are severall kinds of them There is among the Allobroges the Savoyards and the Tarantesians such a beast that sleeps a great part of the year and is of a delicate taste In East-India are some as big as Pigs that overturne houses and digge through walls There are some reddish-haired senting like Musk. In Chiapa is a litle beast the bignes of a Cony shaped like a Dor-mouse that when she seeks her food carries her young on her back CHAP. XVII Of Mice ARTICLE I. Of House-Mice MIce we divide into House Field Nut Spider Alpine and Water-mice The first called in Latine Catus and Sorex and Mus from the Greek Mus Ratus is the name of the greater so called from ravening now of late called Riskos in Greek Sorex is from the noise in nibbling like sawing or from the rotten matter that breeds them in the Aeolick Vrax from the muzzle like the Swines-snout by the Thracians Arklos by some Sminthos and Lamas No need of describing the outward parts as for the inner the heart is very great it is said to have no gall Onely in horned-beasts having teeth on one side and in Hares Bats and Mice that have teeth on either side is there a womb having a hollow whereon the embrio hangs in the midst The lappet of their heart is far greater on the right then the left side and that black as gore blood At the stomacks-mouth above is a certain round passage turning back into it selfe having the shape of a Bird turning and hiding the neck and head in the breast The hollow vein rising from the liver wide in the beginning then slenderer but even all along The blind-gut is like a Swines-stomack though lesse The stones as big as a Chickens and the skins hang lower as the testicles and the right is fuller of veins then the left The right rein is nearer to the hollow vein then the left The privy part is gristly with a threefold parting and sharp at end the rest consists of two sinews The bladder-neck hath fair kennels afore the mid-rif is transparant in the middle long and round In a dissected Mouse in the right horn of the womb were found foure young in the left two each had it's cake of flesh round disposed afore the navell and covered Some write there are no Mice in the Isle Parus that about the Castle Slane in Scotland if you bring a great Mouse he dies That there are none in Peru but those that were brought out of Spain with the Merchants-Wares they eat corne bread flesh and pulse oft onjons and garlick they nibble on many cheeses they sup wine and lick oyl If hunger-starved they fall on each other The females can fill themselves with licking of salt which made Pliny think that by licking they gendred But it is certain that they couple and bring many at once hundred-and-twenty at a time And some in Persia have been found with young in the dames belly They breed also out of filth in houses and ships As in India Worms a finger thick breed of a rotten stuf in reed which after turn into Butter-flies and Mice In Jonia through the overflowing of Maeander Mice multiply so that men are fain to shift their dwellings Those that breed of filth gender not or if they doe their young doe not Their noise is squeaking They hold antipathy with elaterium Sea-Onion coloquintida the Weesel Hauke Cats c. but sympathy with sweet majoram to the root whereof they betake themselves when they ail any thing and they agree with Swine for offer a mous-liver in a fig to a Sow she shall follow you without grunting as Pierius Valerian at Padua hath experimented They are quick of hearing and hate light by night because it dazles them In goldsmiths shops they eat fileings of mettles and doubtles disgest them In the Isle Gyarus they drove out the inhabitants and nibled on iron and steel in the iron-mongers shops Golden metalls their bellies can cut through Their pisse sprinkled thereon eats through If they slip to the water they hold by each others tayls so that if one scape all scape Albert saw in the low-countries a Mouse hold the candle to his master at his nod and bidding They differ in bignes colour hair smell and place In Arabia are Mice much greater then Rats Vitriacus speaks of some in the East as big as Foxes Americus found exceeding great ones in a certain Island most are of the colour of the Asse some black some dusk some ash Gesner saw one very white in Germany taken in April with reddish bolt-goggle-eyes and a beard rough and full of rough hairs Scaliger saw another very bright with flaming eyes Albert writes of white and very lustfull and white stones found in their excrements Some are softer haired then others and some as bristled and sharp as Hedge-hogs in the region of Cyrene and a kind of Mice are called Echines Hedge-hogs The dung of some is sweet In Italy is a kinde called Moschardine from their sent Bellonius saw one that lived on Hoscyam-seed onely white-bellied ash-coloured backed long-bodied and tayled and sword-mouthed called Skalopes by the Scholiast on Aristophanes In Cappadocia is a kind called Muexis ARTICLE II. Of water-Mice and other wilde Mice VVIlde Mice live abroad called Nitedulae they with their feet dig themselves holes The field-Mice are called Arouraiâ—us the wood-Mice Agrious They abound no where so as in Egypt Neare Thebes after the overflow of Nilus in warm weather they come numberles out of the clefts of the ground Between Gazara and Belba they swarm so that were they not devoured by the Perenopters Birds they would eat up all kinds of seeds they devoure Hops Parsnips and the roots of all sorts of Pulse they affect Artichokes most In the year 1271. they destroyed all kind of Grain so that a great dearth ensued In the North they lurk under the snow and feed on worms They are in some places bred after sudden rains and floods The forepart of a Mouse hath the full shape the hinder not Sometimes they propagate of seed It hath happened that when the movers have intended to reape a field next
hungry dog See the rest in Gesner Some take two puppies newly puppied and four pound of oyl of violets and a pound of earthwormes prepared and make an ointment for wounds made by gunshot Andrew Furnerius cries up the destilled water out of whelps to prevent growing of hair Dogs differ in many respects Horned ones are said to be found in the Hellespont In Hispaniola are some that bark not In Guinee some strive to bark and cannot Some in regard of their qualities are Wind-hounds some coursers running-dogs some tumblers some house some gate-dogs some hunting some setting dogs some blood-hounds some shoks If we regard place there English Scotch Epire Cyrenaick Arcadian Indian c. dogs We shall in order treat of the severall sorts and first of mad dogs which become such by eating rotten and worm-eaten meats and flesh chiefly in the dog-daies Then they hate to eat and drink dread water rome up and down bark hoarsly fome extremely at mouth and ears look fearcely their tail hangs down they bite men without barking Many used manifold remedies as white hellebore with barly boyled to make them spew Hen-dung mixt with their meat blooding them after the third day in the swelling veins on the thighs casting them in a pond where many hors-leeches are to suck their bad blood away annointing them over with oyl of poplar washing them in a decoction of fumitory sorell and Elicampane root To prevent it some prescribe giving them while puppies breast-milk of one hath lien in of a son some cut off whelps tails when fourty dayes old Some pinch it off with their fingers the utmost joynt of the tail There are Malta dogs bred in that Isle over against Pachynus a promontory of Sicily some of them short some long haired with shagnecks Blondus prayses the black and white ones now the red and white are cried up As big as a wild weasle They keep and feed them in baskets to keep them little They are dainty of food If they whelp more then once they dy on a sudden That they may be whelped shaggy they strew the place where they ly with woolly fleeches that the bitches may have them ever in ey At Lions in France they are sould for ten pieces In Bononia for four hundred pound They are womens delights Hunting-dogs or Hounds are almost every-where Those are best that are bred in Hircania between a Bitch and a Tiger and those of Epire and the region of the Molossi and Chaonia The Persian are stoutest and fleetest The biggest are in Thebeth Those in the Province Gingue are so bold they dare venture to fasten on a Lion The writers of Husbandry shew how to breed such Alphonso King of Naples prized them and the great Cham of Tartary keeps five thousand of them They are diversly distinguished In relation to the sundry wild that they hunt or chase there are Hare-hounds and little Badger-dogs some good at a fowl that hunt them softly into the nets there are Water-spaniells others are to bait great beasts as Bull and Bear-dogs In respect to places there are those called Arcadian Ausonian Carian Thracian Iberian Hungarian Argive Lacedemonian Tegeatians Sauromatan Candian Celtan Magnetian Amorgan Hounds If you regard their colours there are ash-coloured hony-colour'd yellow white black The white are somewhat afraid of the water and will not willingly take water Those with black spots are thick and tender-footed The ash-coloured or russet are strong set and bold but slow-footed The black are stout but not so fleet as the white being lowthighed Men choose a Hound by his eager looke great head hanging upper-lip red-eyes wide nostrills sharp teeth thick neck broad breast lion liked That is the best Hare-hound that is long and plain-headed sharp-eared behind strait and little the upper-lips not hanging over the lower long and thick necked copped breast strait guts high and lean thighs tayl not thick nor too long not alwayes yelping Some of them go out a hunting of themselves and bring Hares home they call them Tumblers There are as many sorts of wind or sented as of hounds In Scotland are three kinds some bold and very fleet Some will catch fish Some red and black-spotted or black and red-spotted are lime-hounds that will hunt out theeves and stolen goods and take rivers to chase them The English and Scotch usually breed such blood-hounds up and count him a theef who is sky of letting them have accesse where ever they would hunt though into their bed-chamber Such a lime-hound must be low flat-nosed neat-mouthed the hind-thighs of one length not big-bellied plain-backed to the tayl dangling eares quick eyes The Brittish Spanish Gnosian and Tescan excell There is the Village and Shepheards Dog The white Dog is approoved being better distinguished from the Wolf Among the Turks no one master owns them nor come they into house they lay in yards on mats Of old the Romans kept five hundred of them to keep their stables We read little about the Warre-dogs and the useles Curres England breeds some that theeves murderers and traitors breed up for their cursed purpose and some that thirst after royall blood this very yeare Such the Spanjards in battell against the Indians which they feed with mans flesh to train them to hunt men Vazquez Nunnez used them in stead of hangmen The Indian Dogs in America are a new breed yet almost like ours in nature qualities shape The Xeloitzevintly is great most what above three cubits without hair sleek-skinned with yellow and blew spots Another sort they call from the country Itzcevinteporzotli michva canem like those of Malta white black and yellow a litle misshapen yet sportive pleasing fawning with an ugly bunch sticking out from the head and shoulders having almost no neck A third kind is the Tetichi not unlike ours but with a surly looke The Indians eat him as the Thracians of old Diocles the Physitian of the Asclepiad Schole prescribed Puppies-flesh to some Patients But the Cozumellol are a dainty with the Indians they fatten them as the Spanjards Conies and geld them to fatten the sooner and keepe many bitches to breed as shepheards with us for want of children they foster these and are found of them The Alco is a little Dog they are much taken with they pinch themselves to feed them travell with them on their shoulders or in their lap never are without them They have also dogs like Foxes that never barke bred in the Isle Cozumella If you strike them they will not complain nor cry These are called in Hispaniola Calamitan frogs spawned like Vermine by nature no need of an afterâ—birth dogs thin skin nor Hares-dung nor hair Pliny superstitiously seekes after them to strike dogs-dumb In Hispaniola are little dogs that grumble onely aâ—d bark not they taste well In Quivira they lay packs on their greatest Dogs CHAPTER II. Of the Cat. THe Cats
hath marked that the young have crept out of the sand where the egges have been hidden the egges grow not greater They hate the Ichneumon for spoyling their egges and endeavouring to creep into their mouths while they sleep and gnaw their bowell and the wild Ox that can over-master them The Tiger because they teare them when they take them lying on their backs and hauks and therefore the Coptitae that worship the Crocodile kill up the hauks They that carry the gall of water-serpent are said to be safe from the Crocodile They let the Porpisci alone for the prickles on his neck Dolphins get into Nilus under their bellies and tear them up Babillus Gouvernour of Egypt was eye-witnes of it Scorpions wound the young as they break out of the egge They feare a mans voyce and fly if a man pursue them the Tentyritae they hate who dwell on an Isle in the Nile a people of small stature but couragious against Crocodiles that are terrible in pursuit of those that fly them and fly those that pursued them but that people alone dare encounter them and swim and ride them and thrust a club in their mouths and as it were bridle them and captivate them and terrifie them with their very voyce and force them to disgorge bodies newly devoured to bury them so that Crocodiles shun onely that Island and fly if they but smell those men fly them as Serpents the Psylli When in Scaurus his time they were brought to Rome Tentyrites kept and managed them in shews in fish-ponds Among plants they avoid the prickled beane Diverse use to carry Potamogeton with them as an amulet or preservative against the Crocodile They agree well with the hogs so that they are saved by the Niles and with the Trochilus called king of birds in Italy that while they ly gaping after eating picks their teeth and jaws clean which the Crocodile likes so well that they invite the bird and gape on purpose With eating of much fish worms breed in their chaps which the Trochilus eats out which having done the Crocodile would devoure the bird too but that it hath a sharp prickle on the head and makes him open his mouth and so she scapes By night they keepe in the water by day on land the same way they come forth of the water they returne keeping a track Their legs are short and they cannot easily turne aside they leave a sweet sent where they goe especially the female so that no Arabian sweets excell it as the Inhabitants by the River Nilus say foure months some say fourty some sixty dayes they hide themselves and eat not Artemidore the Grammarian was so affrighted with the sight of one that he lost his wits and learning and verily beleeved that the beast had bit off his left legge When they feed on a mans carcasse they with their teares some say break the brain-pan for the brain They doe more harme to those that go up the stream because the fishers catch the fish they would prey on and so ravine fiercely on man and beast and so after Niles overflow when it returns within its chanell for want of fish in the shallows at the rivers mouth where they lurk in the slime watching for what ever comes to drink They follow boats against streame when the boat-men thrust with poles and with their tayl strike man and pole overbord It is a tayl that they hurt no man while Apis his birth is solemnized Achmed Ben-Tolon finding a leaden one at the foundations of Temples commanded it to be melted The Priests guesed that one of the Ptolomees was near death when their old and cheef Crocodile being called came not and refused the meat offered him Being tamed they know mans voyce and will let men handle them and rub their teeth with a napkin and gaped to that end No wonder then that in the Ombitan Marshes that they are brought up by art and tamed and fed with the heads of their sacrifices In the town Anteum and old woman was taken in bed with a Crocodile Many learned say they live as long as man some sixty years some eat them The Apollonopolitae were bound by their law to eat them either because the daughter of King Psammenitus was devoured by one or out of hate of the tyran Typhon who was fained to be turned into a Crocodile In India they roast them and in Florida they dry them and in winter feed on them The egges also in the new world are eaten and in Egypt Sodden they cure Spider-biting the dogs-teeth stuffed with Frankincense asswaged Fevers The blood clears eye-sight and helps stung-parts The fat annointed on is good against shaking in agues and old sores and cancer The skinne burnt mixt with dregs of oyl stupefies à lirib to be cut off or feared In India they cast delinquents bound to Crocodiles In Pegu they keep them in their City-ditches that no man may swim over in the night The Inhabitants because they worship them drink the ditch-ditch-water and beleeved that all killed by Crocodiles fly strait to heaven Firmus a Tyrant of Egypt being annointed over with their fat swam safely among them Some are greater some lesser as Scinci Some called Tenchea In Ganges there are harmles ones and harmfull with a horne on the snout In the Province of Xanagarra they leave a sent like musk where they goe THE SECOND TITLE Of the Beasts that have Toes that come of an egge and are shelled CHAPTER I. Of the Tortoyse in generall HEe is called Testudo from testa his shell In Greeke Chelis c. from Cheoo to be capacious It is no sightly beast covered with an ovall shell like a target whereunder it hides head feet and tayl the head litle the tayl as a snakes the looke rough Severall writers give the shell severall names as hided covering shell c. In Greeke Cheloonion and Ostrakon In stead of teeth it hath one continued bone the lungs are very large and bloodles Liver tainted testicles cleaving to the loyns milt very litle they have reins and bladder and but one passage for excrement which is therefore ever wet It is footed like the Lizard having five toes and nayls Cardan saw one with a nayl in the tayl like a cocks-spur and the tayl of such as of Lizards cut off grows again and harder They are found on land in Sea lakes or muddy places they abound in the Red-Sea and are sold in the Markets They are in the Isle Dioscoris now Socotora and Mauritius once Cerne they meet to gender as others that lay egges they delight not in coupling they lay egges like Henne-egges but lesse and longer with shell white and yolk the shell is so hard that a Cart may drive over it without bruising it it never changes it as other shelly creatures use In winter-moneths they hide themselves in