saying of Aetius is to make a plaister of Garlick and Leeks mixed together or else to eat the said Garlick and Leeks drinking after them a good draught of sweet Wine unmixed and very pure or else apply Nigella Romana Sesamyne and sweet Water unto it Some as Arnoldus writeth prescribe for this cure the dung of a Faulcon or a Scorpion to be bruised all to pieces and laid to the wound But sometimes it happeneth that a mans meat or drink is corrupted with Stellions that fall into the same from some high place where they desire to be climbing and then if the same Meat or Wine so corrupted be eaten or drunk it causeth unto the party a continual vomiting and pain in the stomach Then must the cure be made also by vomits to avoid the poyson and by Glysters to open the lower passage that so there may be no stop or stay to keep the imprisoned meat or drink in the body And principally those things are prescribed in this case which are before expressed in the Cantharides when a man hath by any accident been poysoned by eating of them The remedies which are observed out of this Serpent are these Being eaten by Hawks they make them quickly to cast their old coats or feathers Others give it in meat after it is bowelled to them that have the Falling-sicknesse Also when the head feet and bowels are taken away it is profitable for those persons which cannot hold in their urine and being sodden is given against the Bloudy-flux Also sod in Wine with black Poppy-seed cureth the pain of the loins if the Wine be drunk up by the sick patient The Oyl of Stellions being anointed upon the arm-holes or pits of children or young persons it restraineth all hair for ever growing in those places Also the Oyl of Stellions which are sod in Oyl-olive with Lizards do cure all boils and wens consuming them without lancing or breaking And the ashes of the Stellion are most principally commended against the Falling-sicknesse like as also is the skin or trunck as we have said before The head burned and dryed and afterward mixed with Honey-attick is very good against the continual dropping or running of the eyes and in the days of Pliny he writeth that they mixed Stibium herewithal The heart is of so great force that it being eaten bringeth a most deep and dangerous sleep as may appear by these verses Mande cor tantus prosternet corpora somnus Vt scindi possunt absque dolore manus Which may be Englished thus Eat you the heart and then such sleep the body will possesse That hands may from the same be cut away painlesse To conclude the Physitians have carefully observed sundry medicines out of the egges gall and dung of Stellions but because I write for the benefit of the English Reader I will spare their relation seeing we shall not need to fear the bitings of Stellions in England or expect any drugs among our A pothecaries out of them and therefore I will here end the History of the Stellion Of the TYRE THere be some which have confounded this Serpent with the Viper and taken them both to be but one kinde or at least the Tyre to be a kinde of Viper because the Arabians call a Viper Thiron of the Greek word Therion which signifieth a wilde beast and whatsoever the Grecians write of their Echidna that is their Viper the same things the Arabians write of the Tyre and Leonicenus compiled a whole Book in the defence of that matter and from hence cometh that noble name or composition antidotary called Theriaca that is Triacle But Avicen in the mention of the Triacle of Andromachus distinguisheth the Triacle of the Viper from that of the Tyre and calleth one of them Trohiscos Tyri and the other Trohiscos Viperae So Gentilis and Florentinus do likewise put a manifest difference betwixt the Tyre and the Viper although in many they are alike and agree together This Tyre is called in Latine Tyrus and Tyria and also among the Arabians as Sylvaticus writeth Eosmari and Alpfahex Rabbi Moses in his Aphorisms writeth that when the Hunters go to seek these Serpents they carry with them bread which they cast unto them and while the Tyre doth eat it he closeth his mouth so fast that his teeth cannot suddenly open again to do his hunting adversary any harm and this thing as he writeth is very admirable at the first to them that are ignorant of the secret in nature Galen also writeth so much to Piso of Vipers and he saith that the Circulators Juglers or Quacksalvers did cast certain mazes or small cakes to them which when they had tasted they had no power to harm any body This Tyrus is said to be a Serpent about the coasts of Jericho in the Wildernesse where it hunteth Birds and liveth by devouring of them and their egs And a confection of the flesh of this Serpent with the admixture of some few other things taketh away all intoxicate poyson which confection is called Triacle It is also reported that whereas the Dragons have no poyson of themselves they take it away from this Serpent and so poyson with a borrowed venom For this poyson is very deadly and there is a tale which I will not tell for truth that before the coming and death of our Saviour Jesus Christ the same was unremediable and they dyed thereof whosoever they were that had been poysoned by a Tyre but on the day of Christ his passion one of them was found by chance in Jerusalem which was taken alive and brought to the side of our Saviour hanging up on the Crosse where it also fastened the teeth and from that time ever since all the kinde have received a qualified and remediable poyson and also their flesh made apt to cure it self or other venoms It is reported that when the Tyrus is old he casteth or rather wresteth off his coat in this manner following First it getteth off the skin which groweth betwixt the eyes by which it looketh as if it were blinde and if it be strange to a man I mean the first time that ever he saw it he will verily take it to be blinde afterward it also fleyeth off the skin from the head and so at last by little and little the whole body at which sight it appeareth as though it were an Embryon or skinlesse Serpent They keep their egs in their belly and in them breed their young ones as the Vipers do for before they come out of the dams belly they are in all parts according to their kinde perfect creatures and so every one generateth his like as do four-footed Beasts I take it by the relation of Gesner that the Dipsas in Italy is called Tyrus Also Cardan writeth that there is a supposed and false conceit that with the flesh of this Tyre mixed with Hellebore and water is made a confection to restore youth
to him that loveth all his creatures and will require at mans hand an account of the life and blood of brute beasts Of the CALF A Calf is a young or late enixed Bull or Cow which is called in Hebrew Egel or Par and some-times Ben-bakar the son of an Oxe Yet Rabbi Solomon and Abraham Ezra expound Egel for a Calf of one year old The Sarazens of that word call a Calf Hesel The Graecians Moschos whereof is derived Moscharios but at this day they call him Mouskari or Moschare The Italians Vitello the French Veau the Spaniards Ternera of Teneritudo signifying tenderness and sometimes Bezeron and Vezerro the Germans Ein Kalb the Flemmings Kalf and the Latines Vitulus of the old word Vitulor signifying to be wanton for Calves are exceedingly given to sport and wantonness or as other suppose from the Greek word Italous came Vitulus and therefore the Latines do not alway take Vitulus for a young or new foaled beast but sometime for a Cow as Virgil Eclog. Ego hanc vitulam ne forte recuses Bis venit ad mulctram binos alit ubere soetus Depono And this word like the Greek Moschos signifieth male and female whereunto by divers Authors both Greek and Latine are added divers Epithites by way of explication both of the condition inclination and use of this young beast calling it wilde ripe for the temples unarmed weak sucklings tender wandring unhorned and such like And because the Poets faign that Io was turned into a Cow and that the violet herb was assigned by Iupiter for her meat they derive Viola a Violet from Vitula a Calf by a kinde of Graecian imitation It is also certain that the honor of this young beast have given denomination to some men as Pomponius Vitulus and Vitulus Niger Turamius and Vitellius was derived from this stem or theam although he were an Emperour The like may be said of Moschos in Greek signifying a Calf for there was one Moschus a Sophist that drank nothing but water and there was another Moschus a Grammarian of Syracuse whom Athenaeus doth record was a familiar of Aristarchus and also of another a Poet of the Bucolicks and this serveth to shew us that the love our Ancestors bare unto Cattel appeared in taking upon them their names and were not ashamed in those elder times wherein wisdom and invention was most pregnable to glory in their herds from which they received maintenance But to the purpose that which is said of the several parts of an Oxe and a Cow belongeth also to a Calf for their Anatomy differeth not because they are conceived and generated by them and in them and also their birth and other such things concerning that must be inquired in the discourse of a Cow It is reported by an obscure Author that if the hoof of a Calf be not absolved or finished in the Dams belly before the time of Calving it will dye And also it must be observed that the same diseases which do infest and harm an Oxe do also befall Calves to their extreme perill but they are to be cured by the same fore-named remedies And above the residue these young beasts are troubled with worms which are ingendered by crudity but their cure is to keep them fasting till they have well digested their meat and then take lupines half sod and half raw beaten together and let the juyce thereof be poured down his throat otherwise take dry figs and fitches beaten together with Santonica called Lavender-cotten and so put it down the calves throat as aforesaid or else the fat of a Calf and Marrube with the joyce of Leeks will certainly kill these Evils It is the manner to regard what Calves you will keep and what you will make of and kill either for sacrifice as in an ancient time or private use and to mark and name those that are to be reserved for breed and labour according to these verses Post partum curant vitulus traducitur omnis Et quos aut pecori malunt submittere habendo Continuoque notas nomina gentis inurunt Aut aris servare sacris aut scindere terram Et campum horrentem fractis invertere glebis And all these things are to be performed immediately after their weaning and then in the next place you must regard to geld the males which is to be performed in Iune or as Magus saith in May or at the farthest let them not be above a year old for else they will grow very deformed and small but if you lib them after two years old they will prove stubborn and intractable wherefore it is better to geld them while they be young ones which is to be performed not with any knife or iron instrument because it will draw much blood and indanger the beast through pain but rather with a cloven reed or stick pressing it together by little and little but if it happen that one of a year or two years old be to be libbed then you must use a sharp knife after you have pressed the stones into the cods and cut them out at one stroke and for stanching of the blood let the cod and the ends of the veins be seared with an hot iron and so the wound is cured as soon as it is made And now the time for the effecting hereof is best in the wane of the Moon either in the Spring or Autumn but it is good to leave as many of the veins and nerves of the virile member untouched and whole as may be that so he may not lose any condition of a male except the power of generation And if the wound be overmuch given to bleed lay upon it ashes with the spume of silver which is apt to stanch blood in all green wounds and that day let him not drink and eat but a very little meat for three days after give him green tops or grass soft and easie to chew and at the third days end anoint the wound with liquid pitch ashes and a little Oyl which will soon cure the scar and keep the flies from stinging or harming it If at any time a Cow cast her Calf you may put unto her another Calf that hath not suckt enough from his own Dam and they useâ— in some Countries to give their Calves Wheat-bran and Barly-meal and tender meat especially regarding that they drink morning and evening Let them not lye together in the night with their Dam but asunder untill their sucking time and then immediately separate them again unless the Cow be well fed when the Calf sucketh her ordinary food will yeeld no great tribute of Milk and for this cause you must begin to give the Calf green meat betimes Afterward being weaned you may suffer those young ones to feed with their Dams in the Autumn which were calved in the Spring Then in the next place you must regard the taming of the beast being ready for labour
into a basket if their keeper have any which being filled like dainty and neat men they also desire to wash and so will go and seek out water to wash themselves and of their own accord return back again to the basket of flowers which if they find not they will bray and call for them Afterward being led into their stable they will not eat meat untill they take of their flowers and dresse the brims of their mangers therewith and likewise strew their room or standing place pleasing themselves with their meat because of the savour of the flowers stuck about their cratch like dainty fed persons which set their dishes with green herbs and put them into their cups of wine Their pace is very slow for a childe may overtake them by reason of their high and large bodies except in their feare and for that cause cannot swim as also by reason that the toes of their feet are very short and smally divided When they are brought into a Ship they have a bridge made of wood and covered with earth and green boughs are set on either side so that they imagine they go upon the land untill they enter into the Ship because the boughs keep them from sight of the Sea They are most chast and keep true unto their males without all inconstant love or separation admitting no adulteries amongst them and like men which tast of Venus not for any corporal lust but for desire of heirs and successors in their families so do Elephants without all unchast and unlawful lust take their venereal complements for the continuation of their kinde and never above thrice in all their dayes either male or female suffer carnall copulation but the female only twice Yet is their rage great when the female provoketh them and although they fight not among themselves for their females except very seldom yet do they so burn in this fury that many times they overthrow trees and houses in India by their tuskes and running their head like a Ram against them wherefore then they keep them low and down by subtraction of their meat and also bring some stranger to beat them There was a certain cunning Hunter sent into Mauritania by the Roman Emperor to hunt and take Elephants on a day he saw a goodly young Elephant in copulation with another and instantly a third approached with a direful braying as if he would have eaten up all the company and as it afterward appeared he was an arrival to the female which we saw in copulation with the other male when he approached neer both of them set themselves to combat which they performed like some unresistable waves of the Sea or as the hils which are shaken together by an earthquake wherein each one charged the other most furiously for their love to the terror and admiration of all the beholders and so at last became both disarmed of their teeth and horns by their often blowes before one had overcome the other and so at last by the hunters were parted asunder being ever afterward quiet from such contentions about their females for copulation The Indians separate the stables of the females far asunder from the males because at that time they overthrow their houses They are modest and shamefast in this action for they seek the Deserts Woods and secret places for procreation and sometimes the waters because the waters do support the male in that action whereby he ascendeth and descendeth from the back of the female with more ease and once it was seen that in Virgea a Countrey of the Corascens two Elephants did engender out of India otherwise they couple not out of their own Countries When they go to copulation they turn their heads towards the East but whether in remembrance of Paradise or for the Mandragoras or for any other cause I cannot tell the female sitteth while she is covered They begin to engender the male at six ten twelve fifteen or twenty year old the female not before ten years old They couple but five dayes in two years and never after the female is filled till she have been clear one whole year and after the second copulation he never more toucheth his female At that time the male breatheth forth at his nose a certain fat humour like a menstruous thing but the female hath them not till her place of conception be opened and alway the day after her filling she washeth herself before she return to the flock The time of their going with young is according to some two years and according to other three the occasion of this diversity is because their time of copulation cannot certainly be known because of their secrecy for the greater bodies that beasts have they are the lesse fruitful She is delivered in great pain leaning upon her hinder legs They never bring forth but one at a time and that is not much greater then a great Cow-calfe of three monthes old which she nourisheth six or eight year As soon as it is Calved it seeth and goeth and sucketh with the mouth not with the trunck and so groweth to a great stature The females when they have calved are most fierce for fear of their young ones but if a man come and touch them they are not angry for it seemeth they understand that he toucheth them not for any desire to take or harm them but rather to stroke and admire them Sometimes they go into the water to the belly and there calve for fear of the Dragon the male never forsaketh her but keepeth with her for the like fear of the Dragon and feed and defend their young ones with singular love and constancy unto death as appeareth by the example of one that heard the braying of her calf fallen into a ditch and not able to arise the female ran unto it and for hast fell down upon it so crushing it to death and breaking her own neck with one and the same violent love As they live in herds so when they are to passe over a river or water they send over the least or youngest first because their great bodies together should not cause the deep water to swell or rise above their height the other stand on the bank and observe how deep he wadeth and so make account that the greater may with more assurance follow after the younger and smaller then they the elder and taller and the females carry over their Calves upon their snowts and long eminent teeth binding them fast with their truncks like as with ropes or male girts that they may not fall being sometime holpen by the male wherein appeareth an admirable point of natural wisdom both in the cariage of their young and in sending of the lesser foremost not only for the reason aforesaid but also because they being hunted and prosecuted it is requisite that the greatest and strongest come in the rear and hindmost part for the safegard of
said to be derived of these wilde Goats these are called Cynthian Goats because they are bred in the Mountains of Delos called Cynthus There are of these which are found in the tops of the Lybian Mountains as great as Oxen whose shoulders and legs abound with loose shaggy hair their shins small their faces are round their eyes are hollow and hard to be seen Their horns crooking backward to their shoulders not like other Goats for they stand far distant one from another and among all other Goats they are indued with a most singular dexterity of leaping for they leap from one top to another standing a great way asunder and although many times they fall down upon the hard rocks which are interposed betwixt the Mountains yet receive they no harm for such is the hardness of their members to resist that violence and of their horns to break their falls that they neither are offended thereby in head nor legs Such are the Goats of Soractum as Cato writeth which leapeth from Rock to Rock above threescore foot of this kinde are those Goats before spoken of in the History of the tame Goat which are thought to breath out of their ears and not out of their nostrils they are very swift and strong horned the love betwixt the Dams and the Kids in this kinde is most admirable for the Dam doth most carefully educate and nourish her young the young ones again do most thankfully recompense their mothers carefulness much like unto reasonable men which keep and nourish their own Parents in their old decrepit age which the love of God and nature doth enjoyn them for satisfaction of their own education so do these young wilde Goats toward their own mothers for in their age they gather their meat and bring it to them and likewise they run to the rivers or watering places and with their mouths suck up water which they bring to quench the thirst of their Parents and when as their bodies are rough and ugly to look upon the young ones lick them over with their tongues so making them smooth and neat And if at any time the Dam be taken by the Hunters the young one doth not forsake her till he be also insnared and you would think by the behaviour of the imprisoned Dam towards her young Kids and likewise of the Kid towards his Dam that they mutually contend one to give it self for the other for the Dam foreseeing her young one to hover about her in the hands of her enmies and continually to follow with sighs and tears seemeth to wish and perswade them to depart and to save themselves by flight as if they could say in the language of men Fugite filii infostos venatores ne me miseram capti materno nomine private that is to say Run away my sons save your selves from these harmful and greedy Hunters lest if you be taken with me I be for ever deprived of the name of a mother The young ones again on the other side wandring about their Mother bleat forth many a mournful song leaping to the Hunters and looking in their faces with pitiful aspects as if they said unto him We adjure you oh Hunters by the Maker of us all that you deliver our Mother from your thraldom and instead of her take us her unhappy children bend your hard hearts fear the laws of God which forbiddeth innocents to be punished and consider what reverence you owe to the old age of a mother therefore again we pray you let our lives satisfie you for our Dams liberty But poor creatures when they see that nothing can move they unexorable minde of the Hunters they resolve to dye with her whom the cannot deliver and thereupon of their own accord give themselves into the hands of the Hunters and so are led away with their mother Concerning the Lybian Goats before spoken of which live in the tops of Mountains they are taken by nets or snares or else killed by Darts and Arrows or some other art of hunting But if at any time they descend down into the plain fields they are no less troubled then if they were in the waves of some great water And therefore any man of a slow pace may there take them without any great difficulty The greatest benefit that ariseth from them is their skin and their horns with their skins they are clothed in Winter time against Tempests Frosts and Snow and it is a common weed for Shepherds and Carpenters The horns serve them in steed of Buckets to draw water out of the running streams wherewithall they quench their thirst for they may drink out of them as out of cups they are so great that no man is able to drink them off at one draught and when cunning artificers have the handling of them they make them to receive three times as much more The self same things are written of the Wilde Goats of Egypt who are said never to be hurt by Scorpions There is a great City in Egypt called Coptus who were wont to be much addicted to the worship of Isis and in that place there are great abundance of Scorpions which with their stings and poyson do oftentimes give mortal and deadly wounds to the people whilest they mourn about the Chappel for they worship that Goddess with funeral lamentation against the stinging of these Scorpions the Egyptians have invented a thousand devises whereof this was the principal At the time of their assembly they turn in wilde female Goats naked among the Scorpions lying on the ground by whose presence they are delivered and escape free from the wounds of the Serpents whereupon the Coptites do religiously consecrate these female Goats to divinity thinking that their Idoll Isis did wholly love them and therefore they sacrificed the males but never the females It is reported by Plutarch that wilde Goats do above other meat love meal and figs wherefore in Armenia there are certain black fishes which are poyson with the powder or meal of these fishes they cover these figs and cast them abroad where the Goats do haunt and assoon as the Beasts have tasted them they presently dy Now to the Wilde Goat before pictured called in Latine Rupicapra and Capricornus and in Greek a Gargos and Aigastros and of Homer Ixalon of the Germans Gemmes or Gemmus the Rhetians which speak Italian call it Camuza the Spaniards Capramontes the Polonians Dzykakoza the Bohemians Korytanski Kâ—zlik that is to say a Carinthian Goat because that part of the Alpes called Carinthia is neer bordering upon Bohemia Bellonius writeth that the French call him Chambris and in their ancient tongue Ysard this is not very great of body but hath crooked horns which bend backward to his back whereupon he stayeth himself when he falleth from the slippery Rocks or Mountains These horns they are not fit to fight they are so small and weak and therefore nature hath bestowed them upon them for the cause aforesaid Of all
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
earth for it is certain that it liveth in both elements namely earth and water and for the time that it abideth in the water it also taketh air and not the humor or moistnesse of the water yet can they not want either humor of the water or respiration of the air and for the day time it abideth on the land and in the night in the water because in the day the earth is hotter then the water and in the night the water warmer then the earth and while it liveth on the land it is so delighted with the Sun-shine and lyeth therein so immoveable that a man would take it to be stark dead The eyes of a Crocodile as we have said are dull and blinde in the water yet they appear bright to others for this cause when the Egyptians will signifie the Sun-rising they picture a Crocodile looking upward to the earth and when they will signifie the West they picture a Crocodile diving in the water and so for the most part the Crocodile lyeth upon the banks that he may either dive into the water with speed or ascend to the earth to take his prey By reason of the shortnesse of his feet his pace is very slow and therefore it is not only easie to escape from him by flight but also if a man do but turn aside and winde out of the direct way his body is so unable to bend it self that he can neither winde nor turn after it When they go under the earth into their caves like to all fore-footed and egge-breeding Serpents as namely Lizards Stellions and Tortoises they have all their legs joyned to their sides which are so retorted as they may bend to either side for the necessity of covering their egges but when they are abroad and go bearing up all their bodies then they bend only outward making their thighs more visible It is somewhat questionable whether they lye hid within their caves four months or sixty days for some Authors affirm one thing and some another but the reason of the difference is taken from the condition of the cold weather for which cause they lye hid in the Winter time Now forasmuch as the Winter in Egypt is not usually above four months therefore it is taken that they lie but four months but if it be by accident of cold weather prolonged longer then for the same cause the Crocodile is longer time in the earth During the time they lie hid they eat nothing but sleep as it is thought immoveably and when they come out again they do not cast their skins as other Serpents do The tail of a Crocodile is his strongest part and they never kill any beast or man but first of all they strike him down and astonish him with their tails and for this cause the Egyptians by a Crocodiles tail do signifie death and darknesse They devour both men and beasts if they finde them in their way or neer the bankes of Nilus wherein they abide taking sometimes a calf from the Cow his Dam and carrying it whole into the waters And it appeareth by the pourtraiture of Neacles that a Crocodile drew in an Asse into Nilus as he was drinking and therefore the Dogs of Egypt by a kinde of natural instinct do not drink but as they run for fear of the Crocodiles where-upon came the proverb Vt Canis è Nilo bibit fugit as a Dog at one time drinketh and runneth by Nilus When they desire fishes they put their heads out of the water as it were to sleep and then suddenly when they espy a booty they leap into the waters upon them and take them After that they have eaten and are satisfied then they turn to the land again and as they lie gaping upon the earth the little bird Trochilus maketh clean their teeth and is satisfied by the remainders of the flesh sticking upon them It is also affirmed by Arnoldus that it is fed with mud but the holy Crocodile in the Provinte of Arsinoe is fed with bread flesh wine sweet and hard sod flesh and cakes and such like things as the poor people bring unto it when they come to see it When the Egyptians will write a man eating or at dinner they paint a Crocodile gaping They are exceeding fruitful and prolifical and therefore also in Hieroglyphicks they are made to signifie fruitfulnesse They bring forth every year and lay their egges in the earth or dry land For during the space of theescore days they lay every day an Egge and in the like space they are hatched into young ones by sitting or lying upon them by course the male one while and the female another The time of their hatching is in a moderate and temperate time otherwise they perish and come to nothing for extremity of heat spoyleth the egge as the buds of some trees are burned and scorched off by the like occasion The egge is not much greater then the egge of a Goose and the young one out of the shell is of the same proportion And so from such a small beginning doth this huge and monstrous Serpent grow to his great stature the reason whereof saith Aristotle is because it groweth all his life long even to the length of ten or more cubits When it hath laid the egges it carryeth them to the place where it shall be hatched for by a natural providence and forelight it avoideth the waters of Nilus and therefore ever layeth her egges beyond the compasse of her floods by observation whereof the people of Egypt know every year the inundation of Nilus before it happen And in the measure of this place it is apparent that this Beast is not indued only with a spirit of reason but also with a fatidical or prophetical geographical delineation for so she placeth her egges in the brim or bank of the flood before the flood cometh that the water may cover the nest but not her self that sitteth upon the egges And the like to this is the building of the Beaver as we have showed in due place before in the History of four-footed Beasts So soon as the young ones are hatched they instantly fall into the depth of the water but if they meet with Frog Snail or any other such thing fit for their meat they do presently tear it in pieces the dam biteth it with her mouth as it were punishing the pusillanimity thereof but if it hunt greater things and be greedy ravening industrious and bloudy that she maketh much of and killing the other nourisheth and tendereth this above measure after the example of the wisest men who love their children in judgement fore-seeing their industrious inclination and not in affection without regard of worth vertue or merit It is said by Philes that after the egge is laid by the Crocodile many times there is a cruel stinging Scorpion which cometh out thereof and woundeth the Crocodile that laid it To conclude they never
for her number is sometimes twenty at last the other impatient of delay gnaw out her guts and belly and so come forth destroying their mother And here is no great difference for in the sum and destruction of Father and Mother they all agree and Saint Jerom Saint Basill and Horus do agree and subscribe to the truth of these opinions Thus we have shewed the opinions of the Ancient and first Writers now it followeth that we should likewise shew the opinions of the latter Writers which I will performe with as great brevity and perspicuity as I can Pierius therefore writeth that in his time there were Learned men desirous to know the truth who got Vipers and kept them alive both Males and Females by shutting them up safe where they could neither escape out nor do harme and they found that they engendred brought forth and conceived like other Creatures without death or ruine of Male and Female Amatus Lusitanus also writeth thus The Male and Female Viper engender by wreathing their tails together even to the one half of their body and the other half standeth upright mutually kissing one another In the Male there is a genital member in that part beneath the Navel where they embrace which is very secret and hidden and against the same is the Females place of conception as may appear manifestly to him that will look after the same and therefore all the Philosophers and Physitians have been deceived that have wrote they have conceived at their mouth or that the Male perished at the time of engendering or the Female at the time of her delivery Thus saith Amotus Theophrastus he likewise writeth in this manner The young Vipers do not eate out their way or open with their teeth their Mothers belly nor if I may speak merrily make open their own passage by breaking up of the doors of their Mothers womb but the womb being narrow cannot contain them and therefore breaketh of it own accord and this I have proved by experience even as the same falleth out with the fish called Acus and therefore I must crave pardon of Herodotus if I affirm his relation of the generation of Vipers to be meerly fabulous Thus sar Theophrastus Apollonius also writeth that many have seen the old Vipers licking their young ones like other Serpents Thus have I expressed the different judgements of sundry Authors both new and old touching the generation of Vipers out of which can be collected nothing but evident contradictions and unreconcileable judgements one mutually crossing another So as it is unpossible that they should be both true and therefore it must be our labour to search out the truth both in their words and in the conference of other Authors Wherefore to begin thus writeth Aristotle The Viper amongst other Serpents almost alone bringeth forth a living creature but first of all she conceiveth a soft egge of one colour above the egges lieth the young ones folded up in a thin skin and some-times it falleth out that they gnaw in sunder that thin skin and so come out of their mothers belly all in one day for she bringeth forth more then twenty at a time Out of these words of Arstotle evilly understood by Pliny and other ancient Writers came that errour of the young Vipers eating their way out of their mothers belly for in stead of the little thin skin which Aristotle saith they eat thorough other Authors have turned it to the belly which was clean from Aristotles meaning And another error like unto this is that wherein they affirm that the Viper doth every day bring forth one young one so that if she hath twenty young ones in her belly then also she must be twenty dayes in bringing of them forth The words of Aristotle from whence this error is gathered are these Tectei de en mia emera kathon Tictei de pleo he eikosi which are thus translated by Gaza Parit enim singulos diebus singulis plures quam viginti numero That is to say she bringeth forth every day one more then twenty in number But this is an absurd translation and agreeth neither with the words of Aristotle nor yet with his mind for his words are these Parit autem una die singulos parit autem plus quam viginti numero That is to say in English she bringeth forth every one in one day and she bringeth forth more then twenty so that the sense of these words shall be that the Viper bringeth forth her young ones severally one at a time but yet all in a day But concerning her number neither the Philosopher nor yet any man living is able to define and set it down certain for they vary being sometimes more and sometimes fewer according to the nature of other living creatures And although the Viper do conceive egges within her yet doth she lay them after the manner of other Serpents but in her body they are turned into living Vipers and so the egges never see the sun neither doth any mortal eye behold them except by accident in the dissection of a female Viper when she is with young I cannot also approve them that do write that one namely the Viper among all Serpents bringeth forth her young ones alive and perfect into the world for Nicander and Grevinus do truly affirm with the constant consent of all other Authors that the horned Serpent called Cerastes of which we have spoken already doth likewise bring forth her young ones alive And besides Herodotus writeth of certain winged-Serpents in Arabia which do bring forth young ones as well as Vipers and therefore it must not be concluded with apparent falshood that onely the Viper bringeth her young ones perfect into the world The like fable unto this is that general conceit of the copulation together betwixt the Viper and the Lamprey for it is reported that when the Lamprey burneth in lust for copulation she forsaketh the waters and cometh to the Land seeking out the lodging of the male Viper and so joyneth herselfe unto him for copulation He againe on the other side is so tickled with desire hereof that forsaking his own dwelling and his own kind doth likewise betake himselfe unto the Waters and Rivers sides where in an amorous manner he hisseth for the Lamprey like as when a young man goeth to meet and call his Love so that these two creatures living in contrary elements the earth and the water yet meet together for the fulfilling of their lusts in one bed of fornication Upon which Saint Basill writeth in this manner Vipera infestissimum animal eorum quae serpunt cum muraena congreditur c. that is to say the Viper a most pernicious enemy to all living creeping things yet admitteth copulation with the Lamprey for he forsaketh the Land and goeth to the water-side and there with his hissing voyce giveth notice to the other of his presence which she hearing instantly forsaketh the deep waters and coming to
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
falleth an Hony-dew then will their Milk be wonderful sweet and plentiful there is no food so good for Cowes as that which is green if the Countrey will afford it especially Kie love the wet and wateryplaces although the Butter coming from the milk of such beasts is not so wholesome as that which is made of such as are feed in dryer Pastures The like care is had of their drink for although they love the coldest and clearest waters yet about their time of Calving it is much for better them to have warmer waters and therefore the Lakes which are heated and made to fome by the rain are most wholesome to them and do greatly help to ease their burden and pains in that business Pausanias reporteth a wonder in nature of the Rivers Milichus and Charadrus running through the City Patrae that all the Kie which drink of them in the Spring time do for the most part bring forth males wherefore their herdmen avoid those places at that time Kie for the most part before their Calving are dry and without milk especially about Torona They are also purged of their menstrua in greater measure then either Goats or Sheep which especially come from them a little before or after they have been with the Bull howsoever Aristotle saith that they come from them after they have been five moneths with Calf and are discerned by their urine for the urine of a Cow is the thinnest of all other These beasts are very lustful and do most eagerly desire the company of their male which if they have not within the space of three hours after they mourn for it their lust asswageth till another time In a Village of Egypt called Schussa under the government of the Hermopolites they worship Venus under the title Vrania in the shape of a Cow perswading themselves that there is great affinity betwixt the Goddesse and this beast for by her mournful voice she giveth notice of her love who receiveth the token many times a mile or two off and so presently runneth to accomplish the lust of nature and for this cause do the Egyptians picture Isis with a Cows horns and likewise a Bull to signifie hearing The signes of their Bulling as it is termed are their cries and disorderly forsaking their fellows and resisting the government of their keeper Likewise their secret hangeth forth more then at other times and they will leap upon their fellows as if they were males besides after the manner of Mares they oftner make water then at other times The most cunning heardmen have means to provoke them to desire the Bull if they be slack first of all they withdraw from them some part of their meat if they be fat for that will make them fitter to conceive then take they the geâ—â—als or stones of a Bull and hold it to their nose by smelling whereof they are provoked to desire copulation and if that prevail not then take they the tendrest part of Shrimps which is their fish and beat them in water till they be an ointment and there with anoint the breasts of the Cow after they have been well washed untill it work upon her And some affirm that the tail of an Eel put into her hath the same virtue other attribute much force to the wilde willow to procure lust and conception They are a great while in copulation and some have ghessed by certain signes at the time of copulation whether the Calf prove male or female for say they if the Bull leap down on the right side of the Cow it will be a male if on the left it will be a female which conjecture is no longer true then when the Cow admitteth but one Bull and conceiveth at the first conjunction for which cause the Egyptians decipher a woman bringing forth a maiden childe by a Bull looking to the left hand and likewise bearing a man childe by a Bull looking to the right hand They are not to be admitted to copulation before they be two year old at the least or if it may be four yet it hath been seen that a Heifer of a year old hath conceived and that another of four moneths old hath likewise desired the Bull but this was taken for a monster and the other never thrived One Bull is sufficient for fifteen Kie although Varro faith that he had but two Buls for threescore and ten Kie and one of them was two year old the other one The best time for their copulation is about the time of the Daulphins appearance and so continueth for two or three and fourty daies which is about June and July for those which conceive at that time will bring forth their young ones in a most temperate time of the year and it hath been observed that an Ok immediately after his gelding before he had forgotten his former dâ—sire and inclination his seed not dryed up hath filled a Cow and she proved with Calf They go with Calf ten moneths except eighteen or twenty daies but those which are Calved before that time cannot live and a Cow may bear every year if the Countrey wherein she liveth be full of grasse and the Calf taken away from her at fifteen days old And if a man desire that the Calf should be a male then let him tie the right stone of the Bull at the time oâ— copulation and for a female bind the left Others work this by natural observation for when they would have a male they let their Cattel couple when the North wind bloweth and when a female they put them together when the air is Southerly They live not above fifteen years and thereof ten times they may ingender The best time to Calve in is April because then the Spring bringeth on grasse both for themselves and to increase milk for the young ones They bear not but in their right side although they have twins in their belly which happeneth very seldom and the beast immediately after her delivery must be nourished with some good meat for except she be well fed she will forsake her young to provide for her self therefore it is requisite to give her Vetches Millet-seed and milk mingled with water and scorched Corne and unto the Calves themselves dryed Millet in milk in the manner of a mash and the Kie must also be kept up in stables so as they may not touch their meat at the going forth for they are quickly brought to forsake and loath that which is continually before them and it is observed that when Kie in the Summer time do in greater number above custom go to the Bull then at other times it betokeneth and foresheweth a wet and rainy winter for it cannot be saith Albertus that a beast so dry as is a Cow can be increased in moisture which stirreth up the desire of procreation except also there be a mutation in the air unto abundance of moisture And to
in the Province of Narbon there is an herb growing in waters which is so much desired of their Cattel that they will thrust their heads into the water above their ears to bite that to the roots and the Oxen of the Northern ocean Islands of Germany do grow so fat that they are indangered to die thereby The most common food for Oxen is the same that is already specified in the former discourse of Kie namely Three-leaved grasse Claver grasse all green herbs Hay Beans Vetches Chaffe and in some places Barley and Straw There is also a monethly diet or food given to Oxen for in January and February they give them Vetches and Lupines bruised in water among Chaffe or Pease so bruised and mingled and where is want of such pulse they may give them pressings of Grapes dryed and cleansed which is not turned into wine and mingle them with chaffe for the Cattel to eat but the Grapes themselves are much better before the pressing with their small twigs or leaves because they are both meat and drink and will fat an Ox very speedily The like may be added of boughs of Laurel Elme and other leaves and also Nuts and Acornes but if they be not wearyed and fed with Acornes till they loath them they will fall into scabs In March and April give them Hay and from April unto June give them Grasse and such green meat as may be found abroad Afterward all the Summer and Autumn they may be satisfied with the leaves of Elme Bay Holm and especially that kind of Oake which is without prickles and therefore they cannot abide Juniper In November and December while the seed time lasteth they must have as much given them as they can desire either of the forenamed food or else of some better if need require for it must be principally regarded that the Cattel fall not into leanness in the Winter time for leanness is the mother of many sicknesses in Cattel and their utter overthrow and therefore the benefits by their full feeding are many as may appear by that common proverge Bos ad acervum that is an Ox to a whole heap to signifie such men as live in all plenty and aboundance The like care must be had of their drink for the Neat-herd must diligently look unto their drink that it may be alway clear and it is reported of the rivers Crathâ— and Sibaris that the Cattel which drink of their water do turn white whatsoever colour they had in former times They will live in strength and perfection twelve years and their whole life is for the most part but twenty Kie live not so long the means to know their age is by their teeth and their horn for it is observed that their teeth grow black in their age and their horns wax more circled as they grow in years although I dare not affirm that every circle betokeneth a years growth as some have writen yet I am assured the smooth horn sheweth a young beast More over although Kie will endure much cold and heat both in Winter and Summer yet must you have more regard to your Oxen and therefore it is required that they in the Winter cold weather be kept dry and housed in stals which must be of convenient quantity so as every Ox may be lodged upon straw the floor made higher under their forefeet then their hinder so as their urine may passe away and not stand to hurt their hoofs and there be also allowed for the standing and lodging of every Ox eight foot in breadth and a length answerable The like regard must be had to their manger and rack whereof the slaves must not stand above one foot or rather lesse from one another that so they may not draw out their meat and stamp it underfoot But all the diet and food that the wit of man can ordain will do them no manner of good if regard be not had to their bodily health and preservation of strength for which cause they must receive an ordinary medicine every quarter of the year that is in the end of the Spring Summer Autumn and Winter which in some places is thus made and given in potion they take of Cypres and Lupine leaves an equall quantity beat them small then set them in water in the open air a day and a night and afterward give unto every one for three daies together warmed as much as a wine pinte In other places they give them to prevent sickness a raw Egge a handful of salt in a pinte of wine and other put into the meat of Oxen the foam of new oil mingled with water first a little at once until they be accustomed unto it and afterward more and this they do every fourth or fifth day Cato reciteth a certain vow or prayer which the old Idolatrous Romans were wont to make for the health of their Cattel to Silvanus Mars which was on this manner First they take three pound of green wheat and of Lard four pounds and four pound and a half of fleshie sinews and three pints and a half of wine then put them into earthen pots with hony and put in the wine by it self and this they did yearly but no woman might know how it is made or be present at the time of the preparation and it being made must be presently consumed by fire Unto this ridiculous and superstitious idle invention serving more to express the folly of man then to benefit either man or beast I may add that kind of sacrifice made for beasts which Pliny calleth Daps that was made in the Spring time when the Pear-tree did blossom the manner whereof was thus They did offer to Jupiter Dapalis a bowl of wine on the same day the herd-men and herds make their sacrifice saying in this manner O Jupiter Dapalis I offer unto thee this cup of wine in the behalf of my self family and Cattel if thou wilt perform that unto them which belongeth to thee be good to this wine beneath be good to this my sacrifice Afterward the party washed his hands and then drank the wine saying O Jupiter Dapalis be good to this my sacrifice be good to this inferiour wine and if thou wilt give part thereof to Vesta the sacrifice being ended he took Millet-seed Lentils Oxipanum and Garlick Thus far Cato wherewith if any Reader be offended let him remember to pity such poor remedies and commend his Cattel to the true God that saveth man and beast The Druides of the Gauls called a certain herb growing in moyst places Samolum which being gathered by the left hand of them that were fasting they gave it for an Antidote to Oxen and Swine And Galen telleth of another superstitious cure for Oxen when a man took the horn of a Hart and layed it upon the Chappel of Pan and set upon it a burning Candle which must not be forgotten but alway thought upon in the day time calling upon
horn untill he see them all destroyed and whereas the heads hang fast in his skin for avoiding and pulling them forth by a divine natural instinct he flyeth or runneth to the waters where he findeth Sea-Crabs and of them he maketh a medicine whereby he shaketh off the Serpents heads cureth their wounds and avoideth all their poyson this valiant courage is in Harts against Serpents whereas they are naturally afraid of Hares and Conies and will not fight with them It is no less strange that Harts will eat Serpents but the reason is for medicine and cure for sometimes the pores of his body are dulled and shut up sometimes the worms of his belly do ascend into the roof of his mouth while he cheweth his cud and there cleave fast for remedy whereof the Hart thus affected runneth about to seek for Serpents for his devouring of a Serpent is a cure of this malady Pliny saith that when the Hart is old and perceiveth that his strength decayeth his hair change and his horns dry above custom that then for the renewing of his strength he first devoureth a Serpent and afterward runneth to some Fountain of water and there drinketh which causeth an alteration in the whole body both changing the hair and horn and the Writer of the Gloss upon the 42. Psalm which beginneth Like as the Hart desireth the water springs so longeth my soul after God confirmeth this opinion Vincentius Belluacensis affirmeth that Harts eat Serpents for to cure the dimness of their eye-sight But for the ending of this question we must corsider that there are two kindes of Harts one which by the drawing forth of a Serpent out of her hole doth presently kill her by stamping her under feet this eateth that Serpent and runneth to springing water after that he feeleth the poyson to make his body swell and then by drinking doth vomit forth the poyson and in the mean time loseth both hair and horn yet the Monks of Mesaen affirm that the Harts thus poysoned doth only cover her body in the cold water and not drink thereof for that were exitial unto her but she sendeth forth certain tears which are turned into a stone called Bezahar of which shall be more said hereafter The other kinde of Harts when he findeth a Serpent killeth it and doth not eat it and immediately after the victory returneth to feed in the Mountains Harts are opposed by Wolves for many Wolves together doth overcome a Hart and therefore it is but a fable of Strabo that the Wolves and Harts live tame together in the Woods of the Veneti These kinde of Wolves are called Thoes and they especially fear these Wolves when they have lost their horns and feedeth only in the night season which caused Ovid to write thus Visa fugit nymphe veluti perterrita fulvum Câ—rva lupum c. They are afraid also of the first and second kinde of Eagles for with their wings they raise much dust about the Harts and then they being half blinde the Eagles pull out their eyes or else so beat their feathers about their faces that they hinder their sight and cause them to fall down headlong from the Mountains they fear also the ganning of Foxes and the Lynxes do likewise lye in wait to hurt them These are above all other sour-footed Beasts both ingenuous and fearful who although they have large horns yet their defence against other four-footed Beasts is to run away For this cause in ancient time a fugitive Boy or Servant was called a Hart and if he ran away twice Cantharion which Cantharion was a Spartan fugitive that first ran to the enemy and afterward from them came back again to Sparta And Martial thus describeth Alchaeus who being overcome by Philip King of Macedon ran away like a Hart. Trux spiritus ille Philippi Cervorum cursu praepete lapsus abit The Epithets expressing the qualities of this Beast are many as nimble or agile winged or swift-paced full of years quick-footed horned wandering fearful flying fugitive light wood-hunter wilde and lively There are of them very audacious for they will set upon men as they travel through the Woods and it is observed that the wrathful Hart hath few bunches on his horn neither is it so long as others but bunched at the root yet all of them being pressed with Dogs or other wilde Beasts will fly unto a man for succour It is reported by Philip Melancthon that in Locha a town of Saxony there was a Hart which before rutting time would every year leap over the walls and run over Rocks and Mountains and yet return home again untill the time that Duke Frederick dyed and then the Hart went forth but never returned again The male when he feeleth himself fat liveth solitary and secret because he knoweth the weight of his body will easily betray him to the Hunters if he be hunted and pursued The female commonly calveth neer the high ways of purpose to avoid noisome Beasts to her young one who do more avoid the sight of man then her self Also it is reported that Mithredates had a Bull a Horse and a Hart for his guard beside men who would not be brided to suffer Traytors to kill him being a sleep Moreover it is said of Ptolomeus Philadelphe that having a Hinde-Calf given unto him he brought it so familiarly tame and accustomed it to words that at length it seemed to understand the Greek language And Aelianus affirmeth as much of the Harts of India for that language When they are wounded with a Dart and having gotten it out of their body by eating Dittany they most carefully avoid the Sun-beams lest they shine upon the green wound for then it will hardly be cured but above all other arguments of their understanding none is more firm and evident then their swiming for the Harts of Amanus Libanus and Carmell Mountains of Siria when they are to swim over the Sea to the fruitful green trees of Cyprus they come down to the Sea-shore and there they tarry till they perceive a prosperous wind and a calm water which happening the Captain or leader of them doth first of all enter into the water and so the next followeth laying his head upon the Captains buttocks and so consequently all the residue resting their head upon the precedent In the hindmost are the youngest and weakest that so the violence of the floods being broken by the stronger which go before the more infirm which follow may pass with less difficulty Thus sail they along without star or compass to direct them except their own sense of smelling using their legs for Oares and their broad horns for sails And if the formost be weary then slippeth he back to rest his head upon the hindmost and so likewise the second and third as they feel themselves enfeebled untill they arrive at the happy port of good pasture where
are like to Onions have power in them to purge the belly of Dogs Other give them Goats-milk or Salt beaten small or Sea-crabs beaten small and put into water or Staves-acre and immediately after his purgation sweet Milk If your Dog be obstracted and stopped in the belly which may be discerned by his trembling sighing and removing from place to place give unto him Oaten meal and water to eat mingled together and made as thick as a Pultess or leavened Oaten bread and sometime a little Whay to drink The Ancients have observed that Dogs are most annoyed with three diseases the swelling of the throat the Gowt and madness but the later Writers have observed many noysome infirmities in them First they are oftentimes wounded by the teeth of each other and also of wilde Beasts for cure whereof Blondus out of Maximus writeth these remedies following First let the sinews fibres or gristles of the wound be laid together then sow up the lips or upper skin of the wound with a needle and thred and take of the hairs of the Dog which made the wound and lay thereupon untill the bleeding be stanched and so leave it to the Dog to be licked for nature hath so framed the Dogs tongue that thereby in short space he cureth deep wounds And if he cannot touch the sore with his tongue then doth he wet his foot in his mouth and so oftentimes put it upon the maim or if neither of these can be performed by the Beast himself then cure it by casting upon it the ashes of a Dogs head or burned salt mingled with liquid pitch poured thereupon When a Dog returning from hunting is hurt about the snowt by the venemous teeth of some wilde Beast I have seen it cured by making incision about the wound whereby the poysoned bloud is evacuated and afterward the sore was anoynted with Oyl of Saint Johns-wort Wood-worms cure a Dog bitten by Serpents When he is troubled with Ulcers or rindes in his skin pieces of Pot-sheards beaten to powder and mingled with Vinegar and Turpentine with the sat of a Goose or else Water-wort with new Lard applyed to the sore easeth the same and if it swell anoynt it with Butter For the drawing forth of a thorn or splinter out of a Dogs foot take Colts-foot and Lard or the powder thereof burned in a new earthen pot and either of these applyed to the foot draweth forth the Thorn and cureth the sore for by Dioscorides it is said to have force to extract any point of a Spear out of the body of a man For the Worms which breed in the Ulcers of their heels take Vnguentum Egyptiacum and the juyce of peach-leaves There are some very skilful Hunters which affirm that if you hang about the Dogs neck sticks of Citrine as the wood dryeth so will the Worms come forth and dy Again for this evill they wash the wounds with water then rub it with Pitch Thyme and the dung of an Oxe in Vinegar afterward they apply unto it the powder of Ellebor When a Dog is troubled with the Mangie Itch or Ring-worms first let him blood in his fore-legs in the greatest vein afterward make an Ointment of Quick-silver Brimstone Nettle-seed and twice so much old Sewet or Butter and therewithall anoint him putting thereunto if you please decoction of Hops and Salt water Some do wash Mangy Dogs in the Sea-water and there is a Cave in Sicily saith Gratius that hath this force against the scabs of Dogs if they be brought thither and set in the running water which seemeth to be as thick as Oyl Flegm or melancholy doth often engender these evils and so after one Dog is infected all the residue that accompany or lodge with him are likewise poysoned for the avoiding thereof you must give them Fumitory Sorrel and Whay sod together it is good also to wash them in the Sea or in Smiths-water or in the decoction aforesaid For the taking away of Warts from the feet of Dogs or other members first rub and friccase the Wart violently and afterward anoint it with Salt Oyl Vinegar and the powder of the rinde of a Gourd or else lay unto it Aloes beaten with Mustard-seed to eat it off and afterward lay unto it the little scories or iron chips which fly off from the Smiths hot iron while he beateth it mingled with Vinegar and it shall perfectly remove them Against Tikes Lyce and Fleas anoint the Dogs with bitter Almonds Staves-acre or roots of Maple or Cipers or froth of Oyl if it be old and anoint also their ears with Salt-water and bitter Almonds then shall not the flies in the Summer time enter into them If Bees or Wasps or such Beasts sting a Dog lay to the sore burned Rue with Water and if a greater Fly as the Horner let the Water be warmed A Dog shall be never infected with the Plague if you put into his mouth in the time of any common Pestilence the powder of a Storks craw or Ventricle or any part thereof with Water which thing ought to be regarded for no creature is so soon infected with the Plague as is a Dog and a Mule and therefore they must either at the beginning receive medicine or else be removed out of the air according to the advice of Gratius Sed varii ritus nec in omnibus una potestas Disce vices quae tutela est proxima tenta Wolf-wort and Apocynon whose leaves are like the leaves of Ivie and smell strongly will kill all Beasts which are littered blinde as Wolves Foxes Bears and Dogs if they eat thereof So likewise will the root of Chamaeleon and Mezereon in Water and Oyl it killeth Mice Swine and Dogs Ellebor and Squilla and Faba Lupina have the same operation There is a Gourd called Zinziber of the Water because the taste thereof is like to Ginger the Flower Fruit and Leaf thereof killeth Asses Mules Dogs and many other four-footed Beasts The Nuts Vomicae are poyson to Dogs except their ear be cut presently and made to bleed It will cause them to leap strangely up and down and kill him within two hours after the tasting if it be not prevented by the former remedy Theophrastus Chrysippus affirmeth that the water wherein Sperage hath been sod given to Dogs killeth them the fume of Silver or Lead hath the same operation If a Dog grow lean and not through want of meat it is good to fill him twice or thrice with Butter and if that do not recover him then it is a sign that the worm under his tongue annoyeth him which must be presently pulled out by some Naul or Needle and if that satisfie not he cannot live but will in short time perish And it is to be noted that Oaten bread leavened will make a sluggish Dog to become lusty agile and full of spirit Dogs are also many times bewitched by the only
had an Elephant for his rivall and this also did the Elephant manifest unto the man for on a day in the market he brought her certain Apples and put them into her bosom holding his trunk a great while therein handling and playing with her breasts Another likewise loved a Syrian woman with whose aspect he was suddenly taken and in admiration of her face stroked the same with his trunk with testification of farther love the Woman likewise failed not to frame for the Elephant amorous devices with Beads and Corrals Silver and such things as are grateful to these brute Beasts so she enjoyed his labour and dilgence to her great profit and he her love and kindeness without all offence to his contentment which caused Horat. to write this verse Quid tibi vis mulier nigris dignissima barris At last the woman dyed whom the Elephant missing like a lover distracted betwixt love and sorrow fell beside himself and so perished Neither ought any man to marvel at such a passion in this Beast who hath such a memory as is attributed unto him and understanding of his charge and business as may appear by manifold examples for Antipater affirmeth that he saw an Elephant that knew again and took acquaintaince of his Master which had nourished him in his youth after many years absence When they are hurt by any man they seldom forget a revenge and so also they remember on the contrary to recompense all benefits as it hath been manifested already They observe things done both in weight and measure especially in their own meat Agnon writeth that an Elephant was kept in a great mans house in Syria having a man appointed to be his Overseer who did dayly defraud the Beast of his allowance but on a day as his Master looked on he brought the whole measure and gave it to him the Beast seeing the same and remembring how he had served him in times times past in the presence of his Master exactly divided the Corn into two parts and so laid one of them aside by this fact shewing the fraud of the servant to his Master The like story is related by Plutarch and Aelianus of another Elephant discovering to his Master the falshood and privy theft of an unjust servant About Lycha in Africk there are certain springs of water which if at any time they dry up by the teeth of Elephants they are opened and recovered again They are most gentle and meek never fighting or striking Man or Beast except they be provoked and then being angred they will take up a man in their trunk and cast him into the air like an arrow so as many times he is dead before he come to the ground Plutarch affirmeth that in Rome a boy pricking the trunck of an Elephant with a goad the Beast caught him and lift him up into the air to shoot him away and kill him but the people and standers by seeing it made so great a noise and cry thereat that the Beast set him down again fair and softly without any harm to him at all as if he thought it sufficient to have put him in fear of such a death In the night time they seem to lament with sighs and tears their captivity and bondage but if any come to that speed like unto modest persons they refrain suddenly and are ashmed to be found either murmuring or sorrowing They live to a long age even to 200 or 300 years if sickness or wounds prevent not their life and some but to a 120 years they are in their best strength of body at threescore for then beginneth their youth Iuba King of Lybia writeth that he hath seen tame Elephants which have descended from the Father to the son by way of inheritance many generations and that Ptolemaeus Philadelphus had an Elephant which continued alive many Ages and another of Seleucus Nicanor which remained alive to the last overthrow of all the Antiochi The Inhabitants of Taxila in India affirm that they had an Elephant at the least three hundred and fifty years old for they said it was the same that fought so faithfully with Alexander for King Porus for which cause Alexander cald him Aiax and did afterward dedicate him to the Sun and put certain golden chains about his teeth with this inscription upon them Alexander filius Iovis Aiacem Soli Alexander the son of Iupiter consecrateth this Aiax to the Sun The like story is related by Iubo concrrning the age of an Elephant which had the impression of a Tower on his teeth and was taken in Atlas 400 years after the same was engraven There are certain people in the world which eat Elephants and are therefore called of the Nemades Elephantophagi Elephant-eaters as is already declared there are of these which dwell in Daraba neer the Wood Eumenes beyond the City Saba where there is a place called the hunting of Elephants The Troglodytae live also hereupon the people of Africk cald Asachae which live in Mountains do likewise eat the flesh of Elephants and the Adiabarae of Megabari The Nomades have Cities running upon Charriots and the people next under their Territory cut Elephants in pieces and both sell and eat them Some use the hard flesh of the back and other commend above all the delicates of the world the reins of the Elephants so that it is a wonder that Aelianus would write that there was nothing in an Elephant good for meat except the trunck the lips and the marrow of his horns or teeth The skin of this Beast is exceeding hard not to be pierced by any dart whereupon came the Proverb Culicem haud curat Elephas Indiâ—ns the Indian Elephant careth not for the biting of a Gnat to signifie a sufficient ability to resist all evill and Noble mindes must not revenge small injuries It cannot be but in such 〈◊〉 and vast bodies there should also be nourished some diseases and that many as Strabo saith wherefore first of all there is no creature in the world less able to endure cold or Winter for their impatiency of cold bringeth inflamation Also in Summer when the same is hottest they cool one another by casting durty and filthy water upon each other or else run into the roughest Woods of greatest shadow It hath been shewed already that they devour Chamaeleons and thereof perish except they eat a wilde Olive When they suffer inflamation and are bound in the belly either black Wine or nothing will cure them When they drink a Leach they are grievously pained for their wounds by darts or otherwise they are cured by Swines-flesh or Dittany or by Oyl or by the flower of the Olive They fall mad sometime for which I know no other cure but to tye them up fast in Iron chains When they are tyred for want of sleep they are recovered by rubbing their shoulders with Salt Oyl and Water Cows milk warmed and infused into their
the humour flowing out at their Childrens noses may never hurt them burn a vein in the crown of the head with Wool when they are four year old and thereby they conceive that they are kept and conserved in perpetuall good health and if when they burnt their children they fell into a Cramp they eased them presently by casting upon them the urine of Goats When a Man is thick of hearing mingle together the Gall of an Ox and the Urine of a Goat and infused into the ears although there be in them a very mattery substance Galen prescribeth this portion to evacuate that Water which lyeth betwixt the skin by Urine if one drink Hysope water and the Urine of a Goat Likewise it helpeth the Dropsie and the dust of an Elephants tooth drunk in this Goats Urine it dissolveth the stone in the reins and bladder without all fearful peril and danger The medicines arising out of the female Goat are these We finde that the female Goat and the land toad being sodden together are cures of singular worth for the diseases of all living four-footed beasts The Magi or wisemen say that the right eye of a green living Lizard being taken out and his head forthwith struck off and put in a Goats skin is of a great force against quartan Agues The ashes of a Goats hide besmeared over with Oil taketh away the spots in the face The same ashes made of a Goats hide recovereth the blisters and gals of the feet The shaving of the Goats skin being rubbed with Pumice stone and mixed with Vinegar is an excellent approved good remedy for the Smalpox If a Woman bleed overmuch at the nose let her breasts be bound with a thong made of a Goats skin The same being sodden with the hair on it the juyce being soked up stayeth the belly It is not good for those that have the falling sickness to sleep or lie in a Goats skin if at any time the passion moveth them to it yet it is hurtful for their head by reason of the rank smell and not for any other particular private cause Goats hairs being burnt do appease all issues of bloud which being mixed with Vinegar they are good to stanch the bleeding at nose and you may blow in their nostrils Goats hairs burnt and whole and also Myrrhe mixed with Goats hairs so burnt The same also burned and mingled with Pitch and Vinegar helpeth the bleeding at nose and being put in the nose they stir up lethargies The favour of the Goats horn or of the hair doth the like Goats dung in sweet water doth expell the stone in the body so doth the ashes of Goats hair in like manner which being burned and bruised and given in a medicine they do mightily help and recover the Strangury It is also reported that Goats horn and the hair being burnt will drive away Serpents and their ashes soked or anointed is very good against strokes or stinging of Serpents To stay the Flux in the belly take the hairs that grow behind on the Goats sitting place and burn them which being tempered with beaten Barley and Oil must be perfumed under a mans seat Goats flesh being rosted by the fire where dead men are burnt is good for those that have the Falling-sickness The same is a good remedy against the falling sickness It is good for such to abstain from Hogs flesh Beef or Goats flesh They that drink Goats bloud wax pale presently on it which is excellent to get out spots of any thing it is also good against those that are intoxicate with poison and therefore must be drunk with wine and being sod with marrow it is good against the same disease so is the male Goats bloud The root of Cinkefoyle drunk in wine helpeth ill humors Goats bloud also either of the male or female asswageth the inwards and the flowings or laskes of the belly it is good for those that have the Dropsie being tempered with Hony and also sodden with marrow Some use it against the Bloudy flux and pain of the belly being also sodden with marrow it is good against the same disease If you mix Goats bloud with Chisel steept in broath and a little Rosin put into it whereof make a plaister and lay it to the belly or other parts and it recovereth any pain thereabouts The fat of a male Goat is more faster and therefore good for those that have the Bloudy flux The substance of a Goat is fat yet is not the fat of a Goat so moist as a Swines but for bitings and those that are grieved in their belly Goats fat is better then Swines not because it hath more operation in it to expell the grief but by reason it is thick whereas the Swines grease will run about like oil neither is the fat of Kids so warm and dry as female Goats neither the male Goats so fat as the gelded Goats in Latin called Hireus also female Goats fat is more binding then the Tallow of Oxen but the males fat is good against Scorpions made in a perfume It is also good for those that are poisoned with French green flies called Cantharides Being tempered with Wax it taketh away the stinging of Serpents it helpeth any biting or wound If a Womans breast grieve her after her delivery of childe let her seethe husked Barley and Scallions and the fat of a male Goat whereof let her drink a little Against the ache of the eyes take Goats fat and Sheeps together with a little warm water Almost every grief of the body if it be no wound will be more easily recovered by plaisters but if the grief be as it were grounded or an old grief let it be burned and upon the place so scorched put Butter or the fat of a male Goat it will also recover and heal kibes and Chilblanes It helpeth the Kings evill so doth the fat of the female Goats help the same disease The males fat mixed with Arsenicke taketh away the roughness of the nails it also healeth the nails of the Leprosie without any pain it expelleth the Cantharidans being applyed with the juyce of the Grape that groweth on a wilde Vine This Goats fat is profitable to help any about the straightness of their mouths or lips being tempered with wax it allayeth Sores and Blisters and with Pitch and Brimstone it healeth them and being applyed with Hony and the juice of a Brambel it cureth the swellings arising in the hands or fingers especially in curing of Fellons The fat of a Bull well salted or if it be in an ach or grief dipt in oil without Salt and so after the same manner is the male Goats fat used which being tempered with Roses taketh away the wheales or blisters that rise in the night being also dropped into the ears of one that is deaf it recovereth him It helpeth the Falling sickness putting thereto as
it be a melancholy humor and abounding over-much it waxeth every day thicker and thicker causing obstruction not only in the veins arteries which is to be perceived by heaviness and grief on the left side but also in the Spleen it self whereas by vertue of the heat it is hardned every day more and more and so by little and little waxeth to a hard knob which doth not only occupy all the substance of the Spleen but also many times all the left side of the womb and thereby maketh the evill accidents or griefs before recited much more than they were Now as touching the inflamation of the Spleen which chanceth very seldom for so much as every inflamation proceedeth of pure bloud which seldom entereth into the Spleen I shall not need to make many words but refer you over to the Chapter of the Liver for in such case they differ not but proceeding of like cause have also like signes and do require like cure The old Writers say that Horses be often grieved with grief in the Spleen and specially in Summer season with greedy eating of sweet green meats aâ—d they call those Horses Lâ—enoâ—os that is to say Spleenetick The signes whereof say they are these hard swelling on the left side short breath often groning and greedy appetite to meat The remedy whereof according to Absyrtus is to make a Horse to sweat once a day during a certain time by riding him or otherwise travelling him and to pour into his left nostril every day the juyce of Mirabolans mingled with Wine and Water amounting in all to the quantity of a pinte But me thinks it would do him more good if he drank it as Hierocles would have him to do Eumelius praiseth this drink Take of Cummin seed and of Honey of each six ounces and of Laserpitium as much as a Bean of Vinegar a pinte and put all these into three quarts of water and let it stand so all night and the next morning give the Horse thereof to drink being kept over night fasting Theomnestus praiseth the decoction of Capers especially if the bark of the root thereof may be gotten sodden in water to a syrup Or else make him a drink of Garlick Nitrum Hore-hound and Wormwood sodden in harsh Wine and he would have the left side to be bathed in warm water and to be hard rubbed And if all this will not help then to give him the fire which Absyrtus doth not allow saying the Spleen lyeth so as it cannot easily be fired to do him any good But for so much as the Liver and Spleen are members much occupied in the ingendring and separating of humors many evill accidents and griefs do take their first beginning of them as the Jaundise called in a Horse the yellows driness of body and Consumption of the flesh without any apparent cause why which the Physitians call Atrophia also evill habit of the body called of them Cachexid and the Dropsie But first we will speak of the Jaundise or Yellows Of the Yellows THe Physitians in a mans body do make two kindes of Jaundise that is to say the Yellow proceeding of choler dispersed throughout the whole body and dying the skin yellow and the Black proceeding of melancholy dispersed likewise throughout the whole body and making all the skin black And as the yellow Jaundise cometh for the most part either by obstruction or stopping of the conduits belonging to the bladder of the gall which as I said before is the receptacle of choler or by some inflamation of the Liver whereby the bloud is converted into choler and so spreadeth throughout the body even so the black Jaundise cometh by mean of some obstruction in the Liver-vein that goeth to the Spleen not suffering the Spleen to do his office in receiving the dregs of the â—loud from the Liver wherein they abound too much or else for that the Spleen is already too full of dregs and so sheddeth them back again into the veins But as for the Black Jaundise they have not been observed to be in Horses as in Men by any of our â—arriers in these days that I can learn And yet the old Writers of Horse-leech-craft do seem to make two kindes of Jaundise called of them Cholera that is to say the dry choler and also the moist choler The signes of the dry choler as absyrtus saith is great heat in the body and costiyeness of the belly whereof it is said to be dry Moreover the Horse will not covet to ly down because he is so pained in his body and his mouth will be hot and dry It cometh as he saith by obstruction of the conduit whereby the choler should resort into the bladder of the gall and by obstruction also of the urine vessels so as he cannot stale The cure according to his experience is to give him a Glyster made of Oyl Water and Nitrum and to give him no provender before that you have raked his fundament and to pour the decoction of Mallows mingled with sweet Wine into his nostrils and let his meat be grass or else sweet Hay sprinkled with Nitre and Water and he must rest from labour and be often rubbed Hierocles would have him to drink the decoction of wilde Coleworts sodden in Wine Again of the moist choler of Jaundise these are the signes The Horses eyes will look yellow and his nostrils will open wide his ears and his flancks will sweat and his stale will be yellow and cholerick and he will grone when he lyeth down which disease the said Absyrtus was wont to heal as he saith by giving the Horse a drink made of Thyme and Cumin of each like quantity stampt together and mingled with Wine Honey and Water and also by letting him bloud in the pasterns This last disease seemeth to differ nothing at all from that which our Farriers call the Yellows The signes whereof according to Martin be these The Horse will be faint and sweat as he standeth in the stable and forsake his meat and his eyes and the inside of his lips and all his mouth within will be yellow The cure whereof according to him is in this sort Let him bloud in the neck-vein a good quantity and then give him this drink Take of white Wine of Ale a quart and put thereunto of Saffron Turmerick of each half an ounce and the juyce that is wrung out of a handful of Celandine and being luke-warm give it the Horse to drink and keep him warm the space of three or four days giving him warm water with a little Bran in it Of the Yellows THe Yellows is a general disease in Horses and differ nothing from the yellow Jaundise in men It is mortal and many Horses die thereof the signes to know it is thus pull down the lids of the Horses eyes and the white of the eye will be yellow the inside of his lips will be yellow and gums the cure followeth First let him bloud
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
strong bodies and in strong diseases as in Carbuncles Cankers Ulcers and such like and they be these Arsenicke Sublimat Resalgar and otder medicines compound therewith Silvius also addeth thereunto Sandaraca Chrysocolla and Aconitum but he doth not agree with Avicâ—n in the description of the putrifactive medicines For he saith that they have little pain or none neither be they so hot and drie as those that are called Escharotica that is to say Crustive which be hot in the fourth degree and do breed a crust and scar and cause great pain as unsleck't Lime and the burned dregs of Wine wherefore it seemeth that Avicens description belongeth rather to the crustive then to the Putrifactive medicines Notwithstanding I must needs say that our Chirurgions and also Farriers do finde both Arsenicke and Resalgar to be so sharp hot and burning things as when they minister the same to any part of the body they are forced to allay the sharpness thereof the Chirurgions with the juice of Plantain or Daffadil or else of House-leek the Farriers with Hogs grease Medicines Caustick that is to say Burning are those whose operation are most strong and incline to the nature of the fire and yet more easily allayed as Vigo writeth then the medicines Putrifactive and therefore may be more safely used They be made as he saith of strong lie called Capite 〈…〉 um or Magistra of Vitriolae Romanâ— Sal Nitri Aqua fortis of this sort be all those which Vigo calleth the blistering medicines as Apium Cantharides Câ—clamine Onions strong Garlick Melanacardinum the stones or grains of Vitis Alba otherwise called Brionie Moreover Vigo maketh every one of these Cauteries Potential to excell one another as it were by certain degrees saying that Corrosives be weaker then putrifactives and Putrifactives be weaker then Causticks and therefore Corrosives work in the upper part and in soft flesh Putrifactives in hard flesh and deep But Causticks have power to break the skin in hard flesh and do enter most deeply The use of the most part of which things have been taught you before in sundry places according to Martins experience And therefore I leave to trouble you any further wishing you that are desirous to know any more of those matters to read Taugantâ—us writing Depiroticis and Silvius de medicamentorum compositione and John Vigo writing of Surgery Englished but few years since But the old writers so far as I can judge by the words of Absyrius and others that write of Horse-leach craft do apply this word Caustick to such medicines as are astrictive and binding called of Martin and other Farriers in these dayes binding charges as may well appear by the composition and use here following recited by Vegetius in this sort The receipt of a Caustick used by Chiron to dry up the superfluous moisture and to bind parts loosened and to strengthen parts weakned TAke of Bitumen Judaicum two pound of Bitumen Apollonii two pound of the purest part of Frankincense six ounces of Bdellium Arabicum two ounces of Deers sewet two pound of Populeum two ounces of Galbanum two ounces of the drops of Storax two ounces of common Wax two pound of Resin Gabial one pound of Viscus Itâ—licâ—â— three ounces of Apoxima two ounces of the juyce of Hysop two ounces of the drops of Armoniack two ounces of Pitch one pound Another Caustick used by Pelagonius to dry up Swellings Bladders Wind-gals and Splents in the legs and joynts TAke Virgin Wax one pound of Rosin two pound and a half of Galbanum three ounces of Asphaltum Judaicum two pound of Mirrhe secondary two pound of Bitumen one pound of Armoniack six ounces of Gostas six ounces Boyl all these things together in an earthen pot saving the Asphaltum Armoniack and Costum which being first ground like fine flowre must be added unto the other things and after that they have been boyled and cooled and then boiled all together again and well stirred so as they may be incorporated together and made all one substance These kindes of Emplaisters or Ointments ought in my judgement to be so called as I said before rather binding charges then Caustick medicines because there be no such extreme Corrosive or burning simples in these as are before recited Notwithstanding I refer my judgment to those that be better learned and so end for being over tedious For if I would I could take very good occasion here to speak of divers other medicines whereof some are called Anodyna easing pain and grief Martin calleth them Linoges which are made of Linseed Camomile soft grease and such like things as are hot in the first degree some again are called Narcotica that is to say astonying or bringing to sleep as those that are made of Opi 〈…〉 Mandragora Poppie and such like cold and grosse things And some are called Sarcotica that is Breeding flesh as Barly flowre and Prankincense And many other kinds of Emplaisters Ointments waters and salves which would occupy a book of no small volum to be written hereafter by some other perhaps if not by my self And in the mean time let this that I may have already written suffice Of the Anticor AN Anticor cometh of superfluity of evill-bloud or spirit in the arteries and also of inflamation in the liver which is ingendered by means of too choise keeping and overmuch rest which choaketh the vital power and occasions unnatural swellings in the brest which if they ascend upward and come into the neck they are instantly death The cure whereof is in this sort Let him bleed so as he may bleed abundantly then with a sharp knife in divers places cut the swelling which done set a cupping-glasse thereon and cup it till the glasse filled with foul water fall away it self then give the Horse to drink three mornings together a pinte of M 〈…〉 esie well stirred with Cinamon Licoras and a little Bâ—zar stone and during his sickness let his drink be warmed and mingled with either Bran or Malt. Of the Cords THe Cord is a disease that maketh the Horse stumble and many times fall and they appear in a Horses fore-legs this is the cure thereof Take a sharp knife and cut a slit even at the top of his nose just with the point of the gristle open the slit being made and you shall perceive a white string take it up with a Boars tooth or some crooked bodkin and cut it in sunder then stitch up the slit and anoint it with Butter and the Horse doubtless shall be recovered Of the Millets THe Millets is a grief that appeareth in the Fetlocks behind and causeth the hair to shed three or four inches long and a quarter of an inch in breadth like as it were bare and ill to cure But thus is the cure First wash it well with wrong lie and rub it till it bleed then binde unto it Hony unsleck't Lime and Deers sewet boyled and mingled together this do for the space of
fall And you may lay a stone upon the uppermost board that it may fall the heavier And there are some also which to the lower board do fasten iron pins made very sharp against the which the Mice are driven by the weight of the fall Furthermore there is another kinde of trap made to cover them alive one part of it cut out of a small piece of wood the length of the palm of thy hand and the breadth of one finger and let the other part of it be cut after the form of a wedge and let this piece of wood be erected like a little pillar and let the wedge be put into the notch of another piece of wood which must be made equal with the other or very little shorter and this pillar must be so made that the Moule may not perish before she come to the meat the wood where the meat must stand ought to be a span long and you must fasten the meat about the middle of it but the former part of it must have a cleft which must begin a little from the brim and shall be made almost the length of two fingers and you must make it with two straight corners and take away half the breadth of the wood These three pieces of wood being thus made ready thou shall erect a little pillar so that the wedge may be downward whereby the Mouse may see the meat every where and let the meat be hung in the former corner of the pillar so if the Mouse shall touch the meat he shall be pressed down with the fall of the board Mice also by the fall of a cleft board are taken which is held up with a pillar and having a little spattular of wood whereon the meat shall lye so made that the pillar doth not open being parted except when the Mouse cometh to touch the meat and so by that means she is taken There is also another manner of Mouse-trap used among us which is let there be a hole made and compassed about with a board of a foot long and five or six fingers broad the compass whereof must be four fingers into this hole let there be put a vessel made of wood the length of ones fist but round and very deep and in the middle of each side of this vessel let there be made a hole wherein there is put in a thread made of Iron with meat and let it be compassed about with a small thread which must be fastened overthwart the hole and the part of the thread which hangeth down must be crooked that the meat may be fastened thereto and there must be a piece of the thread without to the which may be tied a stronger piece of wood which is the thread whereon the meat is hanged by the which the Mouse is taken by putting her head into the vessel to catch at the meat And also Mice are taken otherwise with a great Cane wherein there is a knot and in the top of it let there be made a little bow with a Lute string and there stick a great needle in the middle of the pole of the Cane and let the pole be made just in the middle and let there be bound a piece of flesh beneath so prepared that when the Mouse shall bite and move the skin that then the string slippeth down and so the needle pierceth through his head and holdeth him that he cannot run away But among all the rest there is an excellent piece of workmanship to catch Mice which I will here set down Take a piece of wood the length of both thy fists one fist broad and two fingers thick and let there be cut off about some two fingers a little beyond the middle of half the breadth And that breadth where it was cut ought to be more declining and lower after the manner of this letter A. And you must put to the side of this a piece of wood half a circle long bending and in the middle part of each side holes pierced through so that the half circle may be strait and plainly placed to the foundation of the wood that the trap being made it may rest upon the same half circle and upon this half circle let there be placed Iron nails very sharp so that the instrument by falling down may cover the Irons of the half circle assoon as ever they touch the same Furthermore there is another manner of trap when a vessel out of which they cannot escape is filled half up with water and upon the top thereof Oat meal is put which will swim and not sink making the uppermost face of the water to seem white and solid whereunto when the Mouse cometh she leapeth into the Oatmeal and so is drowned And the like may be done with chaffe mingled with Oatmeal and this in all traps must be observed wherein Mice are taken alive that they be presently taken forth for if they make water in the place their fellows will for ever suspect the trap and never come near it till the favour of the urine be abolished â—alladius saith that the thick froth of Oyl being infused into a dish or brasen Caldron and set in the middle of the house in the night time will draw all the Mice unto it wherein they shall stick fast and not be able to escape Pliny saith that if a Mouse be gelded alive and so let go she will drive away all the residue but this is to be understood of the Sorex If the head of a Mouse be flead or if a male Mouse be flead all over or her tail cut off or if her leg be bound to a post in the house or a bell be hung about her neck and so turned going she will drive away all her fellows And Pliny saith that the smoke of the leaves of the Ewe tree because they are a poyson will kill Mice so also will Libbards-bane and Henbane-seed and Wolf-bane for which cause they are severally called Myâ—ctonos and the roots of Wolf-bane are commonly sold in Savoy unto the Country people for that purpose In Germany they mingle it with Oatmeal and so lay it in balls to kill Mice The fume of Wallwort Calcauth Parsely Origanum and Deaths-herb do also kill Mice you may also drive them away with the fume of the stone Haematites and with green Tamarisk with the hoof of a Mule or of Nitre or the ashes of a Weesil or a Cat in water or the gall of an Ox put into bread The seed of Cowcumbers being sod and sprinkled upon any thing Mice will never touch it likewise wilde Cowcumber and Coloquintida kill Mice To keep Mice from Corn make morter of the froth of Oyl mingled together with chaff and let them well dry and afterwards be wrought throughly then plaister the walls of your garnery therewith and when they are dry cast more froth of Oyl upon them and afterwards carry in your corn and the Mice will never annoy it Wormwood
or wrung together through the pinching of their shoos to help themselves withall and for those which are lame and those which are troubled with those grievous sores called Fistulaes If any man shall take either in meat or drink the marrow of a Mule to the weight or quantity of three golden crowns he shall presently become blockish and altogether unexpert of wisdom and understanding and shall be void of all good nutriment and manners The ear-laps or ear-lages of a Mule and the stones of a Mulet being born and carried by any woman are of such great force and efficacy that they will make her not to conceive The heart of a Mule being dryed and mingled with Wine and so given to a woman to drink after that she is purged or cleansed thirty times hath the same force and power that the aforesaid medicine hath for the making of a woman barren The same effect against conception hath the bark of a white poplar tree being beaten together with the reins of a Mule then mingled in Wine and afterwards drunk up If the herb called Harts-tongue be tied upon any part of a woman with the spleen of a Mule but as some have affirmed by it self only and that in the day which hath a dark night or without any Moonshine at all it will make her altogether barren and not able to conceive If the two stones of a Mule be bound in a piece of the skin of the same Beast and hanged upon any woman they will make that she shall not conceive so long as they shall be bound unto her The left stone of a Weesil being bound in the skin or hide of a Mule and steeped or soked for a certain space or time in Wine or in any other drink and the drink in which they are so steeped given to a woman to drink doth surely make that she shall not conceive The stones of a Mulet being burned upon a barren and unfruitful tree and put out or quenched with the stale or urine of either Man or Beast which is gelded being bound and tyed in the skin of a Mule and hanged upon the arm of any woman after her menstrual fluxes will altogether resist and hinder her conception The right stone of a Mule being burned and fastned unto the arm of a woman which is in great pain and travail will make that she shall never be delivered until the same be loosened and taken away but if it shall happen that a Maid or young Virgin shall take this in drink after her first purgation or menses she shall never be able to conceive but shall be always barren and unfruitful The matrix or womb of a female Mule taken and boiled with the flesh of an Ass or any other flesh whatsoever and so eaten by a woman which doth not know what it is will cause her never to conceive after the same The worm which is called a Gloworm or a Globird being taken out of the womb or matrice of a female Mule and bound unto any part of a womans body will make that she shall never be to able conceive The dust or powder which proceedeth from the hoofs of a male or female Mule being mixed or mingled with Oyl which cometh from Myrtleberries doth very much help those which are troubled with the Gout in their legs or feet The dust of the hoofs of a Mule being scorched or burned and the Oyl of Myrtle-berries being mingled with Vinegar and moist or liquid Pitch and wrought or tempered in the form or fashion of a plaister and opposed or put unto the head of any one whose hairs are too fluent and abundant doth very speedily and effectually expel the same The liver of a Mule being burned or dryed unto dust and mixed with the same Oyl of Myrtle-berries and so anointed or spread upon the head is an excellent and profitable remedy for the curing of the aforesaid enormity The dust or powder of the hoofs of a female Mule is very wholesome and medicinable for the healing and curing of all griefs and pains which do happen or come unto a mans yard being sprinkled thereupon The hoof of a Mule being born by a woman which is with childe doth hinder her conception The filth or uncleanness which is in the ears of a Mule being bound in the skin or hide of a little or young Hart and bound or hanged upon the arm of a woman after her purgation doth cause that she may not conceive The same being in like manner mingled or mixed with Oyl which is made of Beavers-stones doth make any woman to whom it is given to drink altogether barren The dirt or dung of a Mule being mixed with a syrup made of Hony Vinegar and Water and given to any one to drink that is troubled with the heart swelling will very speedily and effectually cure the pain thereof The dung of a Mule being burned or dryed and beaten small and afterwards sifted or seirced and washed or steeped in Wine and given to any woman to drink whose menstrual fluxes come forth before their time will in very short space cause the same to stay The stale or urine of a male or female Mule being mingled with their dirt or dung is very good and medicinable for those to use which are troubled with corns and hard bunches of flesh which grow in their feet Assa foetida being mingled with the urine of a Mule to the quantity of a bean and drunk will altogether be an impediment and hinderance to the conception of any woman The stale or urine of a Mule being taken to the quantity of eight pounds with two pounds of the scum or refuge of silver and a pound of old and most clear Oyl all these being beaten or pounded together until they come to the thickness of the fat or sweat which falleth from mens bodies and boiled until they come unto so liquid and thin a juyce that they will speedily and effectually cure and help those which are troubled with the Gout or swelling in the joynts If a woman shall take the sweat which proceedeth from a Horse and anoint it upon a Woollen cloth and so apply it as a plaister or suppository unto her secret parts it will make her altogether barren There is an excellent remedy for those which are pursie or short winded which cometh also by the Mule which is this To take or gather the froath or some of a Mule and to put it into a cup or goblet and give it in warm water for a certain space or time to be drunk either to the man or woman which is troubled with this enormity and the party which do so use it shall in short space have remedy but the Mule will without any lingring of time or consuming of time in pain and sorrow die The milt of a male or female Mule being drunk in a potion or juyce
wash the fat being strained with cold water and to rub it with their hands not much otherwise then women do a sear-cloth for by that means it is made more white and purer There is yet another kinde of way to make Aesypus described by Aetius in these words Take saith he the greasie Wool which groweth in the shoulder pits of Sheep and wash them in hot water being thick and soft and squeeze all the filth forth of the same the washing whereof you shall put in a vessel of a large mouth or brim casting afterwards hot water in the same then take the water in a cup or in some other such like instrument and pour it in and out holding it up very high until there come a froath upon it then sprinkle it over with Sea water if you shall get any if not with some other cold water and suffer it to stand still when it shall wax cold take that which shall flow on the top away with a sadle and cast it into any other vessel afterwards having put a little cold water in it stir it up and down with your hands then having poured out that water put new hot water in it and repeat again the same thing all together which we have now taught until the Aesypus be made white and fat containing no impure or filthy thing in it at all then dry it in the sun being hid for some certain days in an earthen vessel and keep it But all these things are to be done when the Sun is very hot for by that means it will be more effectual and whiter and not hard or sharp There are moreover some which gather it after this manner They put new shorn wool which is very filthy and greasie in a vessel which hath hot water in it and burn the water that it may somewhat wax hot afterwards they cool it and that which swimmeth above in the manner of fat they scum it off with their hands and put it away in a vessel of Tin and so do fill the vessel it self with rain water and put it in the Sun covered with a thin linnen cloth and then we must moisten it again and put up the Aesypus for it hath strength mollifying and releasing with some sharpness but it is counterfeited with wax sewet and Rozen and it is straight ways perceived and forasmuch as the true Aesypus reserveth the scent of the unwashed wool and being rubbed with any ones hands is made like unto Ceruse or white lead Even the filth and sweat of sheep cleaving to their wool hath great and manifold use in the world and above all other that is most commended which is bred upon the Athenian or Grecian Sheep which is made many ways and especially this way First they take off the wool from those places where it groweth with all the sewet or filth there gathered together and so put them in a brazen vessel over a gentle fire where they boyl out the sweat and so take of that which swimmeth at the top and put it into an earthen vessel seething again the first matter which fat is washed together in cold water so dryed in a linnen cloth is scorched in the Sun until it become white and transparent and so it is out in a box of Tin It may be proved by this If it swell like the savour of sweat and being rubbed in a wet hand do not melt but wax white like White lead this is most profitable against all inflamation of the eyes and knots in cheeks or hardness of skin in them Of this Aesypus or unwashed Wool the Grecians make great account and for the variety of dressing or preparing it they call it diversly sometime the call it Oesupon Pharmaicon sometime Oesupon Kerotoeide or Keroten sometime Oesupon Hugron and such like Of it they make Plaisters to asswage the Hypochondrial inflamations and ventosity in the sides Some use Aesopus for Oesypus but ignorantly and without reason it is better to let it alone but in the collection hereof it must be taken from the sound and not from the scabby Sheep But when we cannot come by the true Oesypus then in stead thereof we may take that which the Apothecaries and Ointment-makers do ordain namely Meliloâ—i unc 4. Cardamoni unc 2. Hysopi herb unc 2. with the unwashed Wool taken from the hams or flanks of a Sheep Myrepsus used this Oesypus against all Gowts and aches in the legs or articles and hardness of the spleen Galen calleth it Jus lanae and prescribeth the use of it in this sort Make saith he a Plaister of Oesypus or Jus lanae in this sort Take Wax fresh grease Scammonie old Oyl one ounce of each of Fenny-greek six ounces then seethe or boyl your-oyl with the Jus lanae and Fenny-greek very carefully until it equal the oyl and be well incorporated together and then again set it to the fire with the prescription aforesaid and also he teacheth how to make this Jus lanae for saith he take unwashed Wool and lay it deep in fair water until it be very soft that is by the space of six days and the seventh day take it and the water together that seethe well taking of the fat which ariseth at the top and put it up as is aforesaid these things saith Galen The use of this by reason it is very hot is to display Ulcers and tumors in wounds especially in the secrets and seat being mixed with Melilot and Butter and it hath the same vertue against running sores The same also with Barly meal and rust of iron equally mixed together is profitable against all swelling tumors Carbuncles Tetters Serpigoes and such like it eateth away all proud flesh in the brims of Ulcers reducing the same to a natural habit and equality also filling up the sore and healing it and the same vertue is by Disocorides attributed to Wool burnt also in bruises upon the head when the skin is not broken a Poultess made hereof is said by Galen to have excellent force and vertue The same mingled with Roses and the oar of brasse called Nil cureth the holy fire and being received with Myrrh steeped in two cups of wine it encreaseth or procureth sleep and also is very profitable against the Falling-sickness And being mixed with Corsick Hony it taketh away the spots in the face because it is most sharp and subtile whereunto some add Butter but if they be whealed and filled with matter then prick and open them with a needle and rub them over with a dogs gall or a Calfs gall mingled with the said Oesypus also being instilled into the head with oyl it cureth the Megrim and furthermore it is used against all soreness of the eyes and scabs in their corners or upon the eye-lids being sod in a new shell and the same vertue is attributed to the smoke or soot thereof if the eye-brows or eye-lids be anointed therewith mixed with Myrrh and warmed it
evening because of their fasting all the day before and for this is alleadged the saying of holy Scripture where the Prophet makes mention of Lupi Vespertini but we have shewed already in the story of the Hyaena what those signifie It is said that Wolfs do also eat a kinde of earth called Argilla which they do not for hunger but to make their bellies waigh heavy to the intent that when they set upon an Horse an Ox a Hart an Elk or some such strong beast they may weigh the heavier and hang fast at their throats till they have pulled them down for by vertue of that tenacious earth their teeth are sharpened and the weight of their bodies encreased but when they have killed the beast that they set upon before they touch any part of his flesh by a kinde of natural vomit they disgorge themselves and empty their bellies of the earth as unprofitable food The remainder of their meat they always cover in the earth and if there be many of them in hunting together they equally divide the prey among them all and sometimes it is said that they howl and call their fellows to that feast which are absent if their prey be plentiful Now this they have common with Lions in their greatest extremity of hunger that when they have election of a man and a beast they forsake the man and take the beast Some are of opinion that when they are old they grow weary of their lives and that therefore they come unto Cities and Villages offering themselves to be killed by men but this thing by the relation of Niphus is a very fable for he professeth that he saw an old Wolf come into a Village and set upon a Virgin to destroy and eat her yet he was so old that he had scarse any teeth in his head but by good hap company being at hand the Maid was saved and the Wolf was killed Now those Wolfs that are most sluggish and least given to hunting are most ready to venture upon men because they love not to take much pains in getting their living This Wolf is called Vinipeta but the industrious hunting Wolf Kunegeiseia It is reported that a Wolf will never venture upon a living man except he have formerly tasted of the flesh of a dead man but of these things I have no certainty but rather do believe the contrary that like as Tyrants in an evill grieved estate do pick quarrels against every man that is rich for the spoil of their goods accounting them their enemies how well soever they have deserved at their hands In like manner Wolfs in the time of their hunger fall upon all creatures that come in the way whether they be men or beasts without partiality to fill their bellies and that especially in the winter time wherein they are not afraid to come to Houses and Cities They devour Dogs when they get them alone and Elks in the Kingdom of Norway but for Dogs it hath been seen that they have lived in a kinde of society and fellowship with Wolfs but it was to steal and devour in the night time like as Theeves do cover their malice and secret grudges one to other when they are going about to rob true men Wolfs are enemies to Asses Bulls and Foxes for they feed upon their flesh and there is no beast that they take more easily then an Ass killing him without all danger as we have shewed already in the story of an Ass They also devour Goats and Swine of all sorts except Boars who do not easily yeeld unto Wolfs It is said that a Sow hath resisted a Wolf and that when he fighteth with her he is forced to use his greatest craft and subtlety leaping to and from her with his best activity lest she should lay her teeth upon him and so at one time deceive him of his prey and deprive him of his life It is reported of one that saw a Wolf in a Wood take in his mouth a piece of Timber of some thirty or forty pound weight and with that he did practise to leap over the trunk of a tree thas lay upon the earth at length when he perceived his own ability and dexterity in leaping with that weight in his mouth he did there make his cave and lodged behinde that tree at last it fortuned there came a wilde Sow to seek for meat along by that tree with divers of her Pigs following her of different age some a year old some half a year and some less When he saw them near him he suddenly set upon one of them which he conjectured was about the weight of wood which he carryed in his mouth and when he had taken him whilest the old Sow came to deliver her Pig at his first crying he suddenly leaped over the tree with the Pig in his mouth and so was the poor Sow beguiled of her young one for she could not leap after him and yet might stand and see the Wolf to eat the Pig which he had taken from her It is also said that when they will deceive Goats they come unto them with the green leaves and small boughs of Osiers in their mouths wherewithal they know Goats are delighted that so they may draw them therewith as to a bait to devour them Their manner is when they fall upon a Goat or a Hog or some such other Beast of small stature not to kill them but to lead them by the ear with all the speed they can drive them to their fellow Wolfs and if the beast be stubborn and will not run with him then he beateth this hinder-parts with his tail in the mean time holding his ear fast in his mouth whereby he causeth the poor Beast to run as fast or faster then himself unto the place of his own execution where he findeth a crew of ravening Wolfs to entertain him who at his first appearance seize upon him and like Devils tear him in pieces in a moment leaving nothing uneaten but only his bowels But if it be a Swine that is so gotten then it is said that they lead him to the waters and there kill him for if they eat him not out of cold water their teeth doth burn with an untolerable heat The Harts when they have lost their horns do lie in secret feeding by night for fear of the Wolfs untill their horns do grow again which are their chiefest defence The least kinde of Wolfs we have shewed already do live upon the hunting of Hares and generally all of them are enemies to sheep for the foolish sheep in the day time is easily beguiled by the Wolf who at the sight of the Sheep maketh an extraordinary noise with his foot whereby he calleth the foolish Sheep unto him for standing amazed at the noise he falleth into his mouth and is devoured but when the Wolf in the night time cometh unto a fold of Sheep he first of all compasseth it round about watching both the
Shepheard and the Dog whether they be asleep or awake for if they be present and like to resist then he departeth without doing any harm but if they be absent or asleep then loseth he no opportunity but entereth into the fold and falleth a killing never giving over till he have destroyed all except he be hindered by the approach of one or other for his manner is not to eat any till he have killed all not because he feareth the over-livers will tell tales but for that his insatiable minde thinketh he can never be satisfied and then when all are slain he falleth to eat one of them Now although there be great difference betwixt him and a Bull both in strength and stature yet is he not afraid to adventure combat trusting in his policy more then his vigor for when he setteth upon a Bull he cometh not upon the front for fear of his horns nor yet behinde him for fear of his heels but first of all standeth aloof from him with his glaring eyes daring and provoking the Bull making often proffers to come near unto him yet is wise enough to keep aloof till he spy his advantage and then he leapeth suddenly upon the back of the Bull at the one side and being so ascended taketh such hold that he killeth the Beast before he loosen his teeth It is also worth the observation how he draweth unto him a Calf that wandereth from the dam for by singular treachery he taketh him by the nose first drawing him forward and then the poor Beast striveth and draweth backward and thus they struggle together one pulling one way and the other another till at last the Wolf perceiving advantage and feeling when the Calf pulleth heavyest suddenly he letteth go his hold whereby the poor Beast falleth back upon his buttocks and so down right upon his back then flyeth the Wolf to his belly which is then his upper part and easily teareth out his bowels so satisfying his hunger-greedy appetite But if they chance to see a Beast in the water or in the marsh encombred with mire they come round about him stopping up all the passages where he should come out baying at him and threatning him so as the poor distressed Ox plungeth himself many times over head and ears or at the least wise they so vex him in the mire that they never suffer him to come out alive At last when they perceive him to be dead and clean without life by suffocation it is notable to observe their singular subtilty to draw him out of the mire whereby they may eat him for one of them goeth in and taketh the Beast by the tail who draweth him with all the power he can for wit without strength may better kill a live Beast then remove a dead one out of the mire therefore he looketh behinde him and calleth for more help then presently another of the Wolfs taketh that first Wolfs tail in his mouth and a third Wolf the seconds a fourth the thirds a fifth the fourths and so forward encreasing their strength until they have pulled the Beast out into the dry land whereby you may see how they torment and stretch their own bodies biting their tails mutually pinching and straining every joynt until they have compassed their desire and that no man should think it strange for a Wolf to kill an Ox it is reported that Danaus did build a Temple to Apollo at Argos in the very same place where he saw a Wolf destroy an Ox because he received instruction thereby that he should be King of Greece Wolfs are also enemies to the Buffes and this is no marvail seeing that it is confidently reported by Aelianus that in time of great famine when they get no meat they destroy one another for when they meet together each one bemoaning himself to other as it were by consent they run round in a circle and that Wolf which is first giddy being not able to stand falleth down to the ground and is devoured by the residue for they tear him in pieces before they can arise again Pliny affirmeth that there be Wolfs in Italy whose sight is hurtful to men for when a man seeth one of them though he have never so much desire to cry out yet he hath no power but the meaning of this is as we find in other Writers that if a Wolf first see a man the man is silent and cannot speak but if the man see the Wolf the Wolf is silent and cannot cry otherwise the tale is fabulous and superstitious and thereupon came the proverb Lupus in fabula est to signifie silence Now although these things are reported by Plato Ruellius Vincentius and Ambrose yet I rather believe them to be fabulous then true howbeit Albertus writeth that when a man is in such extremity if he have power to loose his cloak or garment from his back he shall recover his voyce again And Sextus saith that in case one of these Wolfs do see a man first if he have about him the tip of a Wolfs tail he shall not need to fear any harm There be a number of such like tales concerning Wolfs and other creatures as that of Pythagoras A Beast making water upon the urine of a Wolf shall never conceive with young All domestical four-footed Beasts which see the eye of a Wolf in the hand of a man will presently fear and run away If the tail of a Wolf be hung in the cratch of Oxen they can never eat their meat If a Horse tread upon the foot-steps of a Wolf which is under a Horse-man or Rider he breaketh in pieces or else standeth amazed If a Wolf treadeth in the foot-steps of a Horse which draweth a Waggon he cleaveth fast in the rode as if he were frozen If a Mare with Foal tread upon the foot-steps of a Wolf she casteth her Foal and therefore the Egyptians when they signifie abortment do picture a Mare treading upon a Wolfs foot These and such other things are reported but I cannot tell how true as supernatural accidents in Wolfs The Wolf also laboureth to overcome the Leopard and followeth him from place to place but forasmuch as they dare not adventure upon him single or hand to hand they gather multitudes and so devour them When Wolfs set upon wilde Boars although they be at variance among themselves yet they give over their mutual combats and joyn together against the Wolf their common adversary For these occasions a Wolf hath evermore been accounted a most fierce and wilde Beast as may further appear by this History following When Euristines and Procles intended to marry the Daughter of some Grecian that so they might joyn themselves in perpetual league and amity by affinity they went to Delphos to ask counsel of Apollo in what place they should meet with their wives Apollo gave them answer that when they should meet with an extreme wilde Beast as they went into Lacedemonia
navel of any man doth loosen the belly The gall of a Wolf taken in wine doth heal all pains in the fundament The entrails of a Wolf being washed in the best white wine blown upon dryed in an Oven pounded into dust afterwards rowled in Wormwood is a good and effectual remedy against the Colick and Stone If some part of the yard of a Wolf being baked in an oven be eaten by any either man or woman it instantly stirreth them up to lust Concerning the genital of a Wolf I have spoken before in the medicines of the Fox but antiquity as Pliny saith doth teach that the genital of beasts which are bony as Wolves Foxes Ferrets and Weasels are brought to an especial remedy for many diseases If any man take the right stone of a Wolf being bloudy steep it in Oyl and give it unto any woman to apply it unto their secret parts being wrapped in wooll it instantly causeth her to forsake all carnal copulation yea although she be a common strumpet The same being taken in some certain perfume doth help those which are troubled with the foul evil The eyes being anointed with the excrements of a VVolf are instantly freed from all covers or spreading skin therein The powder of the same VVolf being mingled with the sweetest Hony as can possible be had and in like manner rubbed or spread upon the eyes doth expel all dazeling from them The fime of a VVolf long rubbed until it be very light being mingled with Honey by the unction thereof causeth the filth or scurfe growing about the eyes to avoid away and restoreth them to an exceeding clearness The powder of a VVolves head being rubbed upon the teeth doth make fast and confirm the looseness thereof it is most certain that in the excrements of the same beasts there are certain bones found which being bound unto the teeth have the same force and efficacy The dung of a VVolf or Dog being beaten into small powder mingled with Honey and anointed upon the throat doth cure the Quinsie or Squinansie as also all other sores in the throat whatsoever The fime of a VVolf being given to those which are troubled with the Colick to drink doth easily cure them but this dung is more effectual if it have never touched ground which is very hard to come by but it is found by this means The nature of the VVolf both in making his water as also in voiding his excrements is like unto a Dogs for while he voideth his water he holdeth up his hinder-leg and voideth his excrements in some high or steepy place far from the earth by which means it falleth down upon bushes thorns fruits elder-trees or some other herbs growing in those places by which means it is found never touching the earth There is furthermore found in the fime of VVolves certain bones of beasts which they have devoured which for as much as they could not be grinded or chawed so also can they not be concocted which being beaten and bruised small are by some commended to be excellent given in drink for the ease of the Cosick but if the grieved party shall be some fine or delicate person which cannot endure so gross a medicine then mingle it with Salt Pepper or some such like thing but it is most often given in sweet wine so there be but a small quantity thereof drunk at one time But this dung which the Graecians call Lagonas and is to be applyed to the groin of the diseased person ought to be hanged in a band made of wooll but not of any wooll But it would be more effectual if it were made of the wooll of that Sheep which was slain by a VVolf But if the same cannot be got then is it fit that there be two bands one which may be bound about the groin and another which may be bound upon the dung to keep it from falling There are also some which cast a small quantity of the same dung to the bigness of a Bean in a little pot fastening the same to any one which is troubled with the said disease and it healeth them which in a manner seemeth incredible in very short time The dung of a Wolf boyled in small white wine and afterwards taken in drink is very profitable for those which are troubled with the colick and it is also reported that if the same dung be covered with the skin of the same beast and hung upon the thigh of any one which hath the colick being bound with a thread made of the wooll of a Sheep slain by a Wolf it will instantly cure the said disease The fime of a Wolf so that it be not found upon the earth but upon some trees Brambles or Bultushes being kept and when there shall be need bound unto the arm of him that shall be troubled with the Colick or to his neck being included in a bone or in Copper and hung with the thread wherewith silk-women weave doth wonderfully and most speedily cure him so there be great care had that in the mean time there be a little of the same dung given to the grieved party to drink not knowing what it is The dung of a Wolf being taken and the bones therein beaten into powder mingle therewith cold water giving it to any one to drink which is troubled with the Stone and it will instantly cure him The dung of a Wolf beaten into the smallest powder then strained and given unto any in his fit which is troubled therewith to the quantity of half a spoonfull in hot water is a very effectuall and approved cure for the Stone The bones which are found in Wolves being bound unto the arm of any one which is troubled with the Colick having never touched the ground do with great speed and celerity cure him The pastern bone of a Hare found in the dung of a Wolf being bound unto any part of the body of him which is troubled with the colick doth very effectually cure him The dung of a Wolf with the hairs of a white Asse taken by any woman in a certain perfume maketh her apt for conception The teeth of a Wolf are unequall wherefore their bitings are very dangerous A ravening Wolf by his biting bringeth the same danger as a ravenous Dog they also are cured by the same medicins as we have declared at large in the story of the Dog The wounds which come by the teeth or nails of a Wolf are very dangerous for the filth which pieroeth through all clouts or spunges which are laid upon them But they are cured by no other means then the bitings of Dogs Aristotle writeth these things concerning the biting of a Lion and not of a Wolf Johannes Vitus the Hungarian declared that there were certain men in Hungary bitten by a mad Wolf and that they were as it seemed presently cured But before forty dayes expired they all died by a most bitter or painfull disease small
was in the Countrey to fetch water where a great Serpent came and killed them at last Cadmus not finding their return went likewise to the same Fountain where he he found all his men slain and the Serpent approaching to assail him but he quickly killed it Afterward he was admonished by Pallas to strew the teeth of the same Serpent upon the ground which he performed and then out of those teeth saith Ovid arose a multitude of Armed men who instantly fell to fight one with the other in such cruel and bloudy manner that at the last there were but five of them all left alive which five by the will of Pallas were preserved to be the Fathers of the people of Thebes And so Apolio 〈…〉 us faigneth that with the help of men bred of Serpent teeth came Jason to obtain the Golden Fleece They faign also that Achelous when he strove with Hercules about Deianira turned himself into divers shapes and last of all into a Serpent or as some say into a River So likewise Cadmus afore-said being overcome with the sight and sense of his own miseries and the great calamities that befell to his Daughters and Nephews forsook Thebes and came into Illyrium where it is said that he earnestly desired of the Gods to be turned into a Serpent because a Serpent was the first original of all his extremities Antipater faigneth Jupiter to be turned into a Serpent and Medusa refusing the love of Neptune is also faigned by Ovid to be turned into a Serpent when he writeth Hanc pelagi rector templo vitiasse Minervae Dicitur aversa est castos Aegide vultus Nota Jovis texit neve hoc impune fuisset Gorgoneum crinem turpes mutavit in Hydros Nunc quoque ut attonitos formidine terreat hostes Pectore in adverso quos fecit sustinet angues In English thus It is reported how she should abus'd by Neptune be In Pallas Church from which foul fact Joves daughter turn'd her eye And left it should unpunisht be she turnd her seemly hair To loathsome Snakes the which the more to put her foes in fear Before her breast continually she in her hand doth bear Pterius writeth that the myrtle rod was not lawful to be brought into the Temple of Hecate and that a Vine branch was extended over the head of her sign and whereas it was not lawful to name Wine they brought it into her Temple under the name of milk and that therein continually lived harmless Serpents The reason of all this was because that her own Father Faunus fell in love with her whom she resisted with all modesty although she were beaten with a Myrtle rod and made to drink Wine but at last the beastly father was transformed into a Serpent and then he oppressing her with the spires of his winding body ravished her against her minde These and such like stories and Fables are extant about the beginnings of Serpents all which the Reader may consider to stir up his minde to the earnest and ardent meditation of that power that of stones can make men of Rocks water of water Wine and of small Rods great Serpents Then thus having expressed the Original of Serpents in their Creation it followeth now to add the residue of this Chapter about their generation It is a general rule that all Beasts wanting feet and have long bodies perform their work of carnal copulation by a mutual embracing one of the other as Lampreys and Serpents And it is certain that two Serpents in this action seem to be one body and two heads for they are so indivisibly united and conjoyned together and the frame of their body is altogether unapt for any other manner of copulation When they are in this action they send forth a rank savour offensive to the sense of them that do perceive it And although like unto many fishes they want stones yet have they two open passages wherein lyeth their generative seed and which being filled provoketh them to their venereal lust the seed it self being like a milky humor and when the female is under the male she hath also her passages to receive the seed as it were into the cells of her womb and there it is framed into an Egge which she hideâ—h in the earth an hundred in a cluster about the quantity of a Birds egg or a great bead such as are used some-time by women And this is general for all Serpents except Vipers who lay no Egges but hatch in their wombs their young ones as we shall shew at large in their particular history The Serpent having laid her Egge sitteth upon them to hatch them at several times and in a year they are perfected into young ones But concerning the supposed copulation of Serpents and Lampreys I will not meddle in this place reserving that discourse to the History of Fishes and now only it sufficeth in this place to name it as a feigned invention although Saint Ambrose and other ancient Writers have believed the same yet Aihenaeus and of late days P. Jovlus have learnedly and sufficiently declared by unanswerable arguments the clean contrary The Serpents love their Egges most tenderly and do every one of them know their own even among the confused heaps of the multitude and no less is their love to their young ones whom for their safeguard sometime they receive into their mouths and suffer them to run into their bellies And thus much for the generation of Serpents Of the Names of Serpents and their several parts of Anatomy BY Serpents we understand in this discourse all venomous Beasts whether creeping without legs as Adders and Snakes or with legs as Crocodiles and Lizards or more neerly compacted bodies as Toads Spiders and Bees following herein the warant of the best ancient Latinists as namely Cornelius Celsus Pliny and Apuleius do call Lice Serpents in that their relation of the death of Pherecydes the Syrian who was the Praeceptor of Pythagoras of whom it is said Serpentibus periisse to have perished by Serpents when on the contrary it is manifested he was killed by Lice Aristotle and Galen define a Serpent to be animal sanguineum pedibus orbatum oviparum that is a bloudy Beast without feet yet laying egges and so properly is a Serpent to be understood The Hebrews call a Serpent Nachasch Darcon and Cheveia by the Chaldees so also Thanintus and Schephiphon by the Hebrews as Rabbi Solomon Munster and Pagnine write The Grecians Ophidi and Ophis although this word do also signifie a Viper in particular even as the Latine Serpens or Serpula do sometime a Snake and sometime an Adder The Arabians Haie and Hadaie for all manner of Serpents And Testuh or Tenstu or Agestim for Serpents of the Wood likewise Apartias and Atussi The Germans Ein schlang which word seemeth to be derived from Anguis by an usual figure and after the German fashion preposing Sch. The French call it Vn serpent the
express practise hereof Mich. 7. 17. where it is said of Gods enemies that They shall lick the dust like the Serpent Yet Aristotle affirmeth truly that Serpents are Omnitori that is devourers of flesh fish herbs or any other things howbeit herein they pass their kinde or else the curse of God reacheth not to any other kindes then to that alone which deceived our first Parents We have shewed already how they eat and devour men women and children Oxen Sheep and Goats but whatsoever they eat they retain nothing but the moisture of it and the residue they eject whole and undigested Whatsoever is offered them that they take either a bird or a small chicken or an egge having it they take hold but of one end as of the head of a chick or small end of an egge and so set it directly before them then do they gather themselves together in as short a compass as may be that so their bodies which seem long and small being extended may appear great and wide reduced into a short and compacted frame And surely hereby they open and make wider their passage and swallow for then they suddenly goble in the beast or meat before them without any great ado and having kept it in their body till it be dryed from all moisture they cast it out again as they swallowed it up at another ordinary place But for birds and chickens they strive with them till they have gotten off their feathers or else if they swallow them whole they eject the feathers as they do egge-shells The Serpents of the North do in the Summer time eat the flesh of birds and herbs and after the eating of them they taste of a little water or milk if they can attain it or else Wine For this cause they will suck the udders of Kine or Goats or Sheep as hath been seen in England Yet is their appetite to drink but small as is in all other creatures whose livers are fungous and soft like spunges and so are all beasts and creatures which lay egges Above all kindes of drink they love Wine and thereof they be drunk wherefore in Italy they set pottles of Wine to entrap Vipers for if once they smell the Wine they enter the vessel gladly and speedily and the Wine or Milk whereof they drink is poysoned by them But in those places of Africk where it never raineth they eat a kinde of black moist worm which hath many legs as is said by Theophrastus And to conclude their meat and drink is so small that it is received for truth Nulluns venenatum perit fame velsiti that no venomous beast perisheth by hunger or thirst The voyce of Serpents is called Sibilus a hissing and their voyce differeth from all other Beasts hissing in the length thereof for the hissing of a Tortoise is shorter and more abrupt Of this hissing voyce speaketh Lucan saying Quod strident ululantque ferae quod sibilat anguis In English thus Gâ—â—shing and howling is the voyce of-wilde Beasts Long hissing in Snakes and Serpents doth rest Among other things notable in a Serpent this is one because it casteth off his old age every year whereof the Grecians tell this fabulous reason Once Man-kinde strove earnestly with the Gods by supplication for a perpetual youth that they might never wax old and obtaining their desire they laid the same to be carryed upon an Ass The silly Beast waxing sore athirst in his travail at last came unto a water and thereof endevoured earnestly to drink but the keeper of the same water being a Serpent denyed leave to the Ass to drink thereof except he would grant him his carriage which was Perpetual youth The poor Ass ready to perish for thirst easily condescended thereunto Whereupon the Serpent changeth her age for youth and Men their youth for old age and the Ass for his punishment is more tormented with thirst then any other Beast But to leave fables and to come more neer the mark the Latines call the casting off their skin Anguina senectus spolium Serpentis vernatio the Grecians Opheos derma Suphar Leberis Geras the Arabians Geluc Genlut Fulcalhaileb the Italians Spoglia delle Serpi and the Spaniards Pelle de la culebra About this Snakes skin there is great difference among Authors some affirming it to be the very skin Other that it is nothing but a kinde of hard Leprosie grown upon them during the Winter time while they lie hid Some again say that they cast it twice a year first in the Spring and then secondly in the Autumn But by conference of all together it appeareth that while the Serpents he hid by reason of their drought now in the beginning of the Spring when they come first abroad they rub off this skin by sliding betwixt two stones or underneath some root of a tree or else betwixt some boughs or small trees beginning at the head and so continuing to the tail And within four and twenty hours that which was raw and bald beginneth to have another skin upon it and so as a young childe or beast cometh out of the Secondine doth a Serpent come out of the skin As concerning their eye-sight they naturally do take the juyce of Fennel which they eat and by that recover their seeing again and if it happen that they caanot finde sufficient they rub their dim eyes thereupon And if it happen that any of his scales be bruised or fall senseless then do they rub themselves upon the thorns of Juniper And whereas it is thought that they cast their skins again in Autumn that is to be attributed either to Vipers alone which cast their skins twice a year or else to those which are long before they cast and so it falleth off in Harvest or Autumn the first time which by reason of the unseasonableness is thought to be a second coat And this have I my self often found here in England in the Summer time The casting off this skin is thus elegantly described by Tibullus Crudeles Divi Serpens novus exuit annos Forma non ullam fata dedere moram Anguibus exuitur tenui cum pelle vetustas Cur uos angusta conditione sumus Which may thus be Englished O cruel Gods sith Serpents change their yearly age And Fates delay not to resine their form Sith Snakes with tender skin excuss'd their years enlarge Why unto worser hap is Mankinde born Of the inward disposition of Serpents and of their concord and discord with other Creatures IT is ever to our woe to be remembred that which the Lord himself hath left recorded in Genesis that The Serpent was more subtile then all the beasts which God had made By which is expressed the natural disposition of this beast above other to subtilty and policy For I cannot approve the saying of them who think that the Devil at the beginning might as well have used the tongue of an Ass or a Dog to have deceived Man
the Glosse upon the 42. Psalm which beginneth Like as the Hart desireth the water springs so longeth my soul after my GOD. But for the ending of this question we must consider and remember that there are two kindes of Harts one eateth Serpents and feeling the poyson to work straight-way by drinking casteth up the poyson again or else cureth himself by covering all his body over in water The other kinde only by nature killeth a Serpent but after victory forbeareth to eat it and returneth again to feed in the Mountains And thus much for the discord betwixt Harts and Serpents In the next place great is the variance betwixt Serpents Dragons and Elephants whereof Pliny and Solinus write as followeth When the Elephants called Serpent-killers meet with the Dragons they easily tread them in pieces and overcome them wherefore the Dragons and greater Serpents use subtilty in stead of might for when they have found the path and common way of an Elephant they make such devises therein to intrap him as a man would think they had the devise of men to help them for with their tails they so ensnare the way that when the beast cometh they intangle his legs as it were in knots of ropes now when the beast stoopeth down with his trunk to loose and untie them one of them suddenly thrusteth his poysoned head into his trunk whereby he is strangled The other also for there are ever many which lie in ambush set upon his face biting out his eyes and some at his tender belly some winding themselves about his throat and all of them together sting bite tear vex and hang upon him untill the poor beast emptyed of his blood and swollen with poyson in every part fall down dead upon his adversaries and so by his death kill them at his fall and overthrow whom he could not overcome being alive And whereas Elephants for the most part go together in flocks and troops the subtile Serpents do let passe the foremost of every rank and set only upon the hindermost that so one of the Elephants may not help another and these Serpents are said to be thirty yards long Likewise forasmuch as these Dragons know that the Elephants come and feed upon the leaves of trees their manner is to convey themselves into the trees and lie hid among the boughs covering their foreparts with leaves and letting their hinder parts hang down like dead parts and members and when the Elephant cometh to brouze upon the tree-tops then suddenly they leap into his face and pull out his eyes and because that revenge doth not satisfie her thirsting only after death she twineth her gable-long body about his neck and so strangleth him It is reported that the blood of Elephants is the coldest bloud in the world and that the 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 trunk they take hold thereof and instantly in great numbers leap up into his ears which only of all his upper parts are most naked and unarmed out of which they suck his bloud never giving over their hold till he fall down dead and so in the fall kill them which were the procurers of his death So that his and their bloud is mingled both together whereof the Ancients made their Cinnabaris which was the best thing in the World to represent bloud in painting Neither can any devise or art of man ever come neer it and beside it hath in it a rare vertue against poyson And thus much for the enmity betwixt Serpents and Elephants The Cat also by Albertus is said to be an enemy to Serpents for he saith she will kill them but not eat thereof howbeit in her killing of them except she drink incontinently she dyeth by poyson This relation of Albertus cannot agree with the Monks of Mesuen their relation about their Abby-cat But it may be that Albertus speaketh of wilde-cats in the Woods and Mountains who may in ravin for their prey kill a Serpent which followeth with them the same common game The Roes or Roe-bucks do also kill Serpents and the Hedge-hog is enemy unto them for some-times they meet both together in one hole and then at the sight of the Serpent the Hedge-hog foldeth himself up round so as nothing appeareth outwardly save only his prickles and sharp bristles the angry Serpent fetteth upon him and biteth him with all her force the other again straineth herself above measure to annoy the Serpents teeth face eyes and whole body and thus when they meet they lie together afflicting one another till one or both of them fall down dead in the place For sometime the Serpent killeth the Hedgehog and sometime the Hedge-hog killeth the Serpent so that many times she carrieth away the Serpents flesh and skin upon her back The Weasels also fight with Serpents with the like successe the cause is for that one and other of them live upon juyce and so for their prey or booty they fall together in mortall warre Herein the Weasel is too cunning for the Serpent because before she fighteth she seeketh Rue and by eating thereof quickly discomforteth her adversary But some say that she eateth Rue afterward to the intent to avoyd all the poyson she contracted in the combat The Lyon also and the Serpent are at variance for his rufling mane is discouraged by the extolled head of the Serpent to his breast And therefore as S. Ambrose saith this is an admirable thing that the Snake should run away from the Hart the most fearfull of all other beasts and yet overcome the Lyon King of all the residue The Ichneumon or Pharos Mouse is an enemy to Serpents and eateth them and because he is too seeble to deal with a Snake alone therefore when he hath found one he goeth and calleth as many of his fellowes as he can finde and so when they find themselves strong enough in company they set upon their prey and eat it together for which cause when the Egyptians will signifie weaknesse they paint an Ichneumon The Peacock is also a professed terror and scourge to Snakes and Adders and they will not endure neer those places where they hear their voice The Sorex and Swine do also hate and abhor Serpents and the little Sorex hath most advantage against them in the Winter-time when they are at the weakest To conclude the Horse is wonderfully afraid of all kindes of Serpents if he see them and will not go over but rather leap over a dead Snake And thus I will end the warre betwixt Serpents and Four-footed beasts and Fowls Now lest their curse should not be hard enough unto them God hath also ordained one of them to destroy another and therefore now it followeth to shew in a word the mutuall discord betwixt themselves The Spider although
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-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
Cardamomum Galbanum Propolis which may be called Bee glew the herb called Horstrange Panax Opopanax Fleabane the shavings or serapings of the Cypresse or Cedar tree being steeped in Oyl the Jet-stone Sagapâ—num the herb called Poley Fern and all other things that have a strong or vehement ill savour being cast on the coals for a fumigation do with their vapour chase away venomous beasts For whereas all venomous Creatures have the passages or pores of their bodies very straight and narrow they are very easily filled and stuffed and are quickly stopped and suffocated by such like sents and smells Aetius in his thirteenth Book setteth down an excellent fume after this manner Take of Galbenum of Sandracha Butter and of Goats-fat of every one alike much make them into Pills and use them for a fumigation Nicander in Theriacis setteth down some for the same intentions in these Verses Cervinique gravi cornu nidore fugabis Et sic cum accendens Gagatae quandoque lapillum Quem consumentis non exedit impetus ignis Multifidam filicem crepitantibus injice flammis Aut imas viridis libanotidos accipe fibras Tantundemque acris nasturci his junge duobus Aequali capreae jam jactum pondere cornu Aut exiccantem nares cerebrumque nigelam Interdum Sulphur foedum quandoque Bâ—â—â—men Vt sumpta aequali pendantur singula parte Praeterea graveolens candentibus indita prunis Galbana ignitum faciens urtica dolorem Dentatisque cedrum maxillis sectile lignum Omnibus invisum Serpentibus eflat odorem In English thus By Hart-horn fume do Serpents slide away When stone Gagates burning's put thereto Which heat of fire doth not clean destroy Then in t ' those flames cast many-leaved Fern also Of green hogs-fennel take the lowest branches Of Nosewort sharp so much then to them joyn A like proportion of Roes horn in weight and kantches Or else Nigella drying nose and brain Or Brimstone called filthy Sulphure So all be equall in weight and parts to cure Besides Galbanum rank laid on burning coals Or nettles which do cause 〈…〉 ry pain And Cedar cut all burn'd bout Serpents holes Them overcome and make them flie amain The breath or vapour that issueth from Serpents is so pestilent that it killeth all young chickins as Columella saith and for preventing of this mischief it is good to burn Harts-horn Womens hair or Galbanum Vis mirificos cautus perdiscere odores Accensis quibus arcetur teterrima Serpens Aut Styracem uras aut atri vulturis alam Vel Nepetam aut frondem rigidae stirpemque myricae In English thus If thou wouldst learn what cdours for thy skill Were best to scare the Serpent fierce away Burn Styrax or black Vultures winged quill Or Neppe green leaves or stock of Tamarisk assay And Pliny and Sextus agreeing with him do say that if you burn the feathers of a Vultur all Serpents will quickly avoid the strong sent thereof There is a certain River in the Countreys of Media and Paeonia as Aristotle testifieth wherein there is a stone found with whose fume Serpents are chased away whose property is such that if any man cast water on it it will burn and burning if with any Fan you go about to make it to flame it is straightway quenched and thus being extinguished it sendeth forth a savour stronger then any Brimstone And to this subscribeth Nicander in these words Veltu Threicium flamma succende lapillum Quilicet irriguis mersus tamen ardet in undis Expressaque statim resting uitur unctus oliva Hanc quem fluctisoni mittant de littore P 〈…〉 i Qui rudevulgus ibi vescentes carne magistri Pascendi pecoris sua post armenta sequuntur In English thus Or take the Thracian stone which set on fire Will burn in water yet quenched is with Oyl This cast from Pontus shore Heard-men desire The better to feed their flocks and Serpents foyle The powder of a Cedar tree putteth to flight venomous Serpents as Virgil in the third of his Georgicks witnesseth Disce odoratum stabulis accendere Cedrum Galbaneoque agitare graves nidore chelydros Which may be Englished thus Learn how of Cedar fire in thy folds to make And with Galbanums savour put to flight the Snake Things that are strewed or said under us both in our houses and in high-wayes or beds will likewise defend and keep us from venomous creatures as for example Southernwood Dittander Flea-bane Calamint Gentian Hastula regia Sage Nightshade S. Johns wort called of some Fuga daemonum Marjoram Origan wilde Rue wilde Thyme Bay-leaves the shavings or tops of the Cypres or Cedar-tree Cardamomum Penyroyal Wormwood Mugwort Lysimachia called in English Loose-strife and Rosemary And if we cannot lie upon such a bed Tunc juxta virides sinuosi vorticis alveos Amnicolam nepetam per â—besas collige ripas Aut tibi costa salix pulchro quae flore renidet Praebeat instrata securum fronde grabatum Sic quoque montanum polium cujus grave spirans Horret odor nomenque suum qua debet echidnae Herba ab Euxina quae fertur origanus urbe Quaecunque illarum decerpitur obvia prodest Quin etiam multo per aprica cacumina flore Ridens abrotonus pecorique ingrata petitum Pabula serpyllum molli quod pascitur horto Praestat item exiguam circumlustrare conyzam Vrticeasque comas spinosas anagyros Sic punicea sectis ex arbore ramis Regalisque amplis licet hastae frondibus uti Accipe item innocuo medicantem frigore strumum Atque invisa pigris Scyra prima aestate bubulcis Nicander In English thus Then by the winding banks of crooked streams The Water-nep take up which under-foot is tread Or the chast Osier whose fair flower hath beams And leaves secure from Serpents make thy bed The Mountain Poley whose strong smelling breath The snakes abhor that which doth the hydra name The Origan which cometh from Euxinus earth Doprofit all gainst Serpent if you bear the same The smiling Southernwood which groweth on tops of hills Wilde Marjoram to beasts abhorred food Conyza strewed the haunt of Serpents spills The Nettle-crops thorny Anagres stay their mood So do Pomegranate branches cut from tree And the broad leaves of Kingly Hasta use Strume bealing strumes in harmless cold I see And Scyra which in Summer Neatheards do refuse In like sort to sprinckle the place with water where in Sal Ammoniaoum is dissolved driveth away Serpents as Avicen affirmeth If any one anoint himself either with Dears-sewet the fat of Elephants or Lions Serpents wil shun that person and there be some as Pliny saith that for fear of Serpents do anoint their bodies with the seeds of Juniper The juyce of the black Vine extracted from the root and anointed on the body performeth the like For preservation from Serpents Nicander compoundeth this ointment Take two Vipers about the end of Spring time Deer-sewet thirty drams Vngenti rosati
thirty six drams crude Oyl of Olives as much commix them with nine ounces of Wax boil the Serpents till the flesh fall from the bones which you must cast away because they are venomous They that will yet be more assured let them anoint their bodies with a thin cerate made of Wax Oyl of Roses a little Galbanum some powder of Harts-horn or else Cummin-seed of Aethiopia c. Aetius If a man carry about him the tooth of a Stag or those small bones which are found in his heart he shall be secured from Serpents If any one do bear about him wilde Bugloss or the root of the wilde Carot he cannot be wounded of any Serpents Grevinus is of the minde that the Jet-stone beside other manifest qualities hath yet this as peculiar to it self that he which carryeth it about with him need neither to fear Serpents nor any other poysons Now for venomous beasts which are found in any houses the best way is to pour scalding water into their dens and lurking holes And if any man constrained by necessity can finde no other place to sleep but such a one as where Salamanders the Spiders called Phalangia or the like Serpents do abound it is good to stop the holes and corners with Garlick beaten with water or some of those herbs which before we have spoken of But yet men now adays hold it the safest course to pour unquenched Lime sprinkled with water into their dens and secret corners As they that are bitten by a mad Dog so all such persons be wounded by venomous creatures are in exceeding great danger unless at the first they receive speedy help and succour The safest way therefore to cure the poyson is by attractives which draw from the more inward parts to the surface and not to make too much post-hast in closing up the wound But if any one hath swallowed down and taken inwar 〈…〉 any poyson the best way is as Dioscorides writeth to vomit often but if any be wounded by biting then it is best to use scarification and to fasten Cupping-glasses upon the place affected to draw out the poyson Some use to suck the venom out and others to cut off and dismember the part And this is to be observed that if any one will undertake to suck out the renom the party that attempteth it must not be fasting and besides he must wash his mouth with some Wine and after that holding a little Oyl in his mouth to suck the part◠and to spit it presently forth And before Cupping-glasses be applyed the part must first be fomented with a Spunge then scarified deeply that the venomous matter may the more speedily be drawn out from the more inward parts and yet cutting off the flesh round in a compass doth more good then any scarification But if the place will admit no section or incision then cupping-glasses with deep scarification with much flame must needs be used for by attraction of the bloud and other humors with windiness the poyson it self must of necessity follow And Aetius in his 13. Book and tenth Chapter counselleth that the sick person be kept from sleep and so sit still until he finde some ceasing or releasing from his pain Besides the member which is envenomed ought to be be bound round about that the poyson may not too easily convey it self and penetrate into the more noble and principal parts as the heart liver or brain And in this manner having applyed your Ligature you must by the advice of Fumanellus set on your Cupping-glasses and they being removed apply the herb Calamint upon the place and to give the patient some of the root of Mugwort in powder or the best Treacle and such Cordials as do corroborate the heart and for this intent Bugloss Borage Balm and any of their flowers are much commended A Dove or Pigeon being divided in the midst and applyed hot to the place affected attracteth poyson to it self and healeth And the same effect and vertue have other living creatures as namely Hens and Chickens young Kids Lambs and Pigs if they be set to in the beginning immediately after the Cupping-glasses be removed for being as yet hot and warm they draw out the poyson and mitigate pain But if neither any one for love or money can be found that will or dare suck out the venom and that no Cupping-glass can be provided then it is best that the patient do sup of Mutton Veal or Goose broth and to provoke vomiting Yet they that will more effectually and speedily give help use to kill a Goat and taking out the entrails with the warm dung therein found forthwith binde unto the place The learned Physitian Matthiolus in his Comment upon Dioscorides saith that to avoid the danger that cometh by sucking out the venom men now adays use to apply the fundament of some Cock or Hen or other Birds after the feathers are puld off to the wounded place and the first dying to apply another in the same order and so another and another until the whole venomous matter be clean driven away whereof one may be certainly assured if the last Hen or Bird so applyed do not die Avicen the Arabian saith that the Physitians of Egypt in which Countreey there be infinite store of venomous Beasts do hasten to burn the part with fire as the safest and surest remedy when any one is this way endangered For fire not only expelleth poysons but many other grievances But the way how they used to burn with fire was divers in these cases For sometimes they used to sear the place with a hot Iron and other whiles with a cord or match being fired and sometimes scalding Oyl and many other devises they had with burning medicaments to finish this cure as saith Hieron Mercurialis in his first book De Morb. Venenatis writeth and John Tagault Institut Chirurg lib. 2. saith that the wound must first be seared with a hot Iron if the place can endure it or else some caustick and vehement corroding medicine must be used for all such wounds are for the most part deadly and do bring present death if speedy remedy be not given and therefore according to Hippocrates counsel to extream griefs extream remedies must be applyed so that sometimes the safest way is to take or cut off that member which hath either been bitten or wounded Neither am I ignorant saith Dioscorides what the Egyptians do in these cases For when they reap their Corn in Harvest time they have ready at hand prepared a pot with pitch in it and a string or band hanging at it for at that time of the year they are most afraid of Serpents which then chiefly do hide themselves in dark holes and caves of the earth and under thick clots and turffs for Egypt aboundeth with such venomous and poysonful creatures When as therefore they have wounded either the foot or any other part they that are present do put the string into the
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
monstrous Serpent growing all his life long unto the length of fifteen or twenty cubits And as Phalareus witnesseth in the days of Psammitichas King of Egypt there was one found of five and twenty cubits long and before that in the days of Amasis one that was above six and twenty cubits long the reason whereof was their long life and continual growth We have shewed already that the colour of a Crocodile is like to Saffron that is betwixt yellow and red more inclining to yellow then red not unlike to the blacket kinde of Chamaeleon but Peter Martyr saith that their belly is somewhat whiter then the other parts Their body is rough all over being covered with a certain bark or rinde so thick firm and strong as it will not yeeld and especially about the back unto a cart-wheele when the cart is loaded and in all the upper parts and the tail it is impenetrable with any dart or spear yea scarsely to a pistol or small gun but the belly is softer whereon he receiveth wounds with more facility for as we shall shew afterwards there is a kinde of Dolphin which cometh into Nilus and fighteth with them wounding them on the belly parts The covering of their back is distinguished into divers divided shells standing up far above the flesh and towards the sides they are lesse eminent but on the belly they are more smooth white and very penetrable The eyes of a Crocodile of the water are reported to be like unto a Swines and therefore in the water they see very dimly but out of the water they are sharp and quick sighted like to all other four-footed Serpents that lay egges They have but one eye lid and that groweth from the neather part of the cheek which by reason of their eyes never twinckleth And the Egyptians say that only the Crocodile among all the living creatures in the water draweth a certain thin bright skin from his fore-head over his eyes wherewithall he covereth his sight and this I take to be the only cause of his dim sight in the waters The head of this Beast is very broad and his snout like a Swines When he eateth or biteth he never moveth his neather or under chap. Whereof Aristotle giveth this reason that seeing Nature hath given him so short feet as that they are not able to hold or to take the prey therefore the mouth is framed in stead of feet so as it may more vehemently strike and wound and also more speedily move and turn after the prey and this is better done by the upper then the neither chap. But it is likely that he was deceived for he speaketh of Crocodilus marinus a Crocodile of the Sea whereas there is no Crocodile of the Sea but rather some other monster like a Crocodile in the Sea and such peradventure Albertus saw and thereupon inconsiderately affirmed that all Crocodiles move their under-chaps except the Teuchea But the learned Vessalius proveth it to be otherwise because that the neather-chap is so conjoyned and fastened to the bones of the temples that it is not possible for to be moved And therefore the Crocodile only among all other living creatures moveth the upper-chap and holdeth the under-chap unmoveable The second wonder unto this is that the Crocodile hath no tongue nor so much as any appearance of a tongue But then the question is how it cometh to distinguish the sapours and tast of his meat Whereunto Aristotle answereth that this Crocodile is such a ravening Beast that his meat tarryeth not in his mouth but is carryed into his stomach like as other water Beasts and therefore they discern sapours and relish their meat more speedily then other for the water or humor falleth so fast into their mouths that they cannot stand long upon the tast or distast of their meat But yet some make question of this and they answer that most men are deceived herein for whiles they look for his tongue upon his neather-chap as it is in all other Beasts and finde none they conclude him to want that part but they should consider that the tongue cleaveth to the moveable part and as in other Beasts the neather-chap is the seat of the tongue because of the motion so in this the tongue cleaveth to the upper-chap because that it is moveable and yet not visible as in other and therefore is very hardly discerned For all this I rather conclude with the former Authors that seeing it liveth both in the waters and on the land and therefore it resembleth a fish and a beast as it resembleth a Beast locum obtinet linguae it hath a place for a tongue but as it resembleth a fish Elinguis est it is without a tongue It hath great teeth standing out all of them stand out before visibly when the mouth is shut and fewer behinde And whereas Aristotle writeth that there is no living creature which hath both dentes prominentes serratos that is standing out and divided like a saw yet the Crocodile hath both These teeth are white long sharp and a little crooked and hollow their quantity well resembling the residue of the proportion of the body and some say that a Crocodile hath three rows of teeth like the Lyon of Chius and like the Whale but this is not an approved opinion because they have no more then sixty teeth They have also sixty joynts or bones in the back which are also tyed together with so many nerves The opening of his mouth reacheth to the place of his ears and there be some Crocodiles in Ganges which have a kinde of little horn upon their noses or snout The milt is very small and this some say is only in them that bring forth egges their stones are inward and cleave to their loyns The tail is of the same length that the whole body hath and the same is also rough and armed with hard skin upon the upper part and the sides but beneath it is smooth and tender It hath fins upon the tail by the benefit whereof it swimmeth as also by the help of the feet The feet are like a Bears except that they are covered with scales in stead of hair their nails are very sharp and strong for if it had a thumb as well as it hath feet the strength thereof would over-turn a ship It is doubtful whether it hath any place of excrement except the mouth And thus much for the several parts of the Crocodile The knowledge also of the natural actions and inclinations of Crocodiles is requisite to be handled in the next place because that actions follow the members as sounds do instruments First therefore although Aristotle for the most part speaking of a Crocodile calleth it aquatilis fluviatilis yet it is not to confine it to the Waters and Rivers as though it never came out of them like fishes but only to note that particular kinde which differeth from them of the
of them then he is to adventure upon a man in compleat Armour and therefore all the people plant great store of these and also bear them in their hands when they travail There be many who in the hunting and prosecuting of these Crocodiles do neither give themselves to run away from them nor once to turn aside out of their common path or road but in a foolish hardinesse give themselves to combat with the Beast when they might very well avoid the danger but many times it hapneth that they pay dearly for their rashnesse and repent too late the too much reputation of their own manhood for whiles with their spears and sharp weapons they think to pierce his sides they are deceived for there is no part of him penetrable except his belly and that he keepeth safe enough from his enemies blunting upon his scales no lesse hard then plates of Iron all the violence of their blows and sharpnesse of weapons but clubs beetles and such like weapons are more irksome to him when they be set on with strength battering the scales to his body and giving him such knocks as doth dismay and astonish him Indeed there is no great use of the taking of this Serpent nor profit of merchandize cometh thereby his skin and flesh yeelding no great respect in the world In ancient time they took them with hooks baited with flesh or else inclosed them with nets as they do fishes and now and then with a strong Iron instrument cast out a boat down in the water upon the head of the Crocodile And among all other there is this one worthy to be related The Hunter would take off the skin from a Swines back and therewithal cover his hook whereby he allured and inticed the Serpent into the midst of the River and there making it fast he went afterward to the next watering place and there holding another Hog did beat and smite him till he cryed ardently with which voyce or cry the Crocodile being moved goeth presently to the bait and swalloweth it up and maketh after the noise at last coming to the land the Hunter with valiant courage and diligence casteth mud and dirt into his eyes and so blindeth him that he may oppresse and kill him with ease Leo Afric relateth also this means or way to take Crocodiles There be many Trees planted upon the banks of Nilus unto one of these there is a long and strong rope tyed and at the end of the same there is fastened a hook of a cubit long and a finger in quantity unto this hook for a bait is tyed a Ram or a Goat which being set close to the River and tormented with the hook upon which it is fastened cryeth out amain by hearing of whose voyce the hunger-greedy Crocodile is raised out of his den and invited as he thinketh to a rich prey so he cometh although it self of a trecherous nature yet suspecteth not any other and swalloweth the bait in which he findeth a hook not to be digested Then away he striveth to go but the strength of the rope stayeth his journey for as fast as the bait was to the rope and hook so fast is he also ensnared and tyed unto it which while he waveth and straineth to unloose and break he wearyeth himself in vain And to the intent that all his strength may be spent against the tree and the rope the Hunters are at one end thereof and cause it to be cast to and fro pulling it in and now letting it go again now terrifying the Beast with one noise and fear and anon with another so long as they perceive in him any spirit of moving or resistance so being quieted to him they come and with clubs spears beetles staves and such manner of instruments pierce through the most tenderest parts of his body and so destroy him Peter Martyr hath also other means of taking Crocodiles Their nature is that when they goe to the land to forrage and seek after a prey they cannot return back again but by the same footsteps of their own which they left imprinted in the sand whereupon when the Countrey people perceive these footsteps instantly with all the hast they can make they come with spades and mattocks and make a great ditch and with boughs cover the same so as the Serpent may not espy it and upon the boughs they also again lay sand to avoid all occasion of deceit or suspicion of fraud at his return then when all things are thus prepared they hunt the Crocodile by the foot untill they finde him then with noises of bells pans kettels and such like things they terrifie and make him return as fast as fear can make him run towards the waters again and they follow him as neer as they can until he falleth into the ditch where they come all about him and kill him with such instruments or weapons as they have prepared for him and so being slain they carry him to the great City Cair where for their reward they receive ten pieces of gold which amounteth to the value of ten nobles of our English coin There have been some brought into that City alive as P. Martyr affirmeth whereof one was as much as two Oxen and two Camels could bear and draw and at the same time there was one taken by this devise before expressed which had entered into a Village in Saetum neer Nilus and swallowed up alive three young Infants sleeping in one Cradle the said Infants scarcely dead were taken again out of his belly and soon after when no more tokens of life appeared they were all three buryed in a better and more proper grave of the earth Then also there was another slain and out of his belly was taken a whole Ram not digested nor any part of him consumed and the hand of a woman which was bitten or torn off from her body above the wrist for there was upon the same a Bracelet of Brasse We do read that Crocodiles have been taken and brought alive to Rome The first that ever brought them thither was Marcus Scaurus who in the games of his aedility brought five forth and shewed them to the people in a great pond of water which he had provided only for that time and afterward Heliogabalus and Antoninus Pius The Indians have a kinde of Crocodile in Ganges which hath a horn growing out of his nose like a Rhinocerot unto this Beast they cast condemned men to be devoured for in all their executions they want not the help of men seeing they are provided of Beasts to do the office of Hang-men Aurelius Festivus writeth that Firmus a Tyrant of Egypt being condemned to Nilus to be devoured by Crocodiles beforehand bought a great quantity of the fat of Crocodiles and so stripping himself stark naked laid the same over his body so he went among the Crocodiles and escaped death for this savage Beast being deceived with the savour of its own
are and therefore the cure is to be expected hereafter in the next History of the Toad Of the TOAD Now I finde of these Toads two kindes the one called Rubeta palustris a Toad of the fens or of the waters the other Rubeta terrestris a Toad of the earth And these in Authors are sometimes confounded one taken for another The greatest difference that I can learn is their seat or place of habitation for they live both of them in the land and in the water And of them that be in the water some of them be smaller then the other and are therefore called Rubetulae that is little Toads and I think they be the same which are called by some Authors Ranae Simoides Near unto Zurick there are Toads not half so big as the vulgar Toads at a place called Kiburg being of a durty colour on the back and sharp boned the belly white and yellow or rather betwixt both the eyes of a gold flaming colour the buttocks and hinder-legs hairy and besides that place these kindes of Toads are no where found They have a very shrill voyce so as they are heard a great way off like a small bell or trumpet and they never utter their voyce but in the Spring and the fore-part of the Summer for about September they hide themselves in trees neither do they live among the waters but on the dry land when they cry it is certain that the night following will bring forth no frost Like unto this there is a Toad in France called Bufo cornutus a horned Toad not because it hath horns for that is most apparently false but for that the voyce thereof is like to the sound of a Cornet or rather as I think like to a Raven called Cornix and by a kinde of Barbarism called Bufo cornutus The colour of this Toad is like Saffron on the one part and like filthy dirt on the other besides there are other venomous Toads living in sinks privies and under the roots of plants There is another kind also like to the Toad of the water but in stead of bones it hath only gristles and it is bigger then the Toad of the fen living in hot places There is another also which although it be a Toad of the water yet hath it been eaten for meat not many years since the mouth of it is very great but yet without teeth which he doth many times put out of the water like a Tortoise to take breath and in taking of his meat which are flies Locusts Caterpillers Gnats and small creeping things it imitateth the Chamaeleon for it putteth out the tongue and licketh in his meat by the space of three fingers in the top whereof there is a soft place having in it viscous humor which causeth all things to cleave fast unto it which it toucheth by vertue whereof it devoureth great flies And therefore the said tongue is said to have two little bones growing at the root thereof which by the wonderful work of Nature doth guide fortifie and strengthen it And thus much may serve as a sufficient relation unto the Reader for the diversity of Toads Now we will proceed to the common description of both kindes together This Toad is in all outward parts like unto a Frog the fore-feet being short and the hinder-feet long but the body more heavy and swelling the colour of a blackish colour the skin rough viscous and very hard so as it is not easie to be broken with the blow of a staffe It hath many deformed spots upon it especially black on the sides the belly exceeding all other parts of the body standing out in such manner that being smitten with a staffe it yeeldeth a sound as it were from a vault or hollow place The head is broad and thick and the colour thereof on the neather part about the neck is white that is some-what pale the back plain without bunches and it is said that there is a little bone growing in their sides that hath a vertue to drive away Dogs from him that beareth it about him and is therefore called Apoâ—ynon The whole aspect of this Toad is ugly and unpleasant Some Authors affirm that it carryeth the heart in the neck and therefore it cannot easily be killed except the throat thereof be cut in the middle Their liver is very vitious and causeth the whole body to be of ill temperament And some say they have two livers Their milt is very small and as as for their copulation and egges they differ nothing from Frogs There be many late Writers which do affirm that there is a precious stone in the head of a Toad whose opinions because they attribute much to the vertue of this stone it is good to examine in this place that so the Reader may be satisfied whether to hold it as a fable or as a true matter exemplifying the powerful working of Almighty God in nature for there be many that wear these stones in Rings being verily perswaded that they keep them from all manner of gripings and pains of the belly and the smal guts But the Art as they term it is in taking of it out for they say it must be taken out of the head alive before the Toad be dead with a piece of cloth of the colour of red Scarlet wherewithal they are much delighted so that while they stretch out themselves as it were in sport upon that cloth they cast out the stone of their head but instantly they sup it up again unlesse it be taken from them through some secret hole in the said cloth whereby it falleth into a cistern or vessel of water into the which the Toad dareth not enter by reason of the coldnesse of the water These things writeth Massarius Brasavolus saith that he found such a thing in the head of a Toad but he rather took it to be a bone then a stone the colour whereof was brown inclining to blacknesse Some say it is double namely outwardly a hollow bone and inwardly a stone contained therein the vertue whereof is said to break prevent or cure the stone in the bladder Now how this stone should be there ingendered there are divers opinions also and they say that stones are ingendered in living creatures two manner of ways either through heat or extream cold as in the Snail Pearch Crab Indian Tortoyses and Toads so that by extremity of cold this stone should be gotten Against this opinion the colour of the stone is objected which is sometimes white sometimes brown or blackish having a citrine or blew spot in the middle sometimes all green whereupon is naturally engraven the figure of a Toad and this stone is sometimes called Borax sometimes Crapadinae and sometimes Nisae or Nusae and Cholonites Others do make two kindes of these two stones one resembling a great deal of milk mixed with a little bloud so that the white exceedeth the red and yet both are apparent and visible the other all black
that many times whole troops of men and cattell are in an instant overwhelmed and buryed in those sands And this is a wonderfull worâ— of God that those places which are least habitable for man are most of all annoyed with the most dangerous biting Serpents It is also said that once these Horned Serpents departed out of Lybia into Egypt where they depopulated all the Countrey Their habitation is neer the high-wayes in the sands and under Cart-wheels and when they goe they make both a sound with their motion and also a surrow in the earth according to the saying of Nicander Ex iis alter echis velocibus obvia spinis Recto terga tibi prolixus tram te ducit Sed medio diffusius hic cerastes se corpore volvit Curvum errans per iter resonantibus aspera squamis Qualiter aequoreo longissima gurgite navis Quam violentus agit nunc huc nunc Africus illuc Pellitur et laterum gemebunda fragore suorum Extra sulcandas sinuose fluctuat undas Which may be Englished thus Of these the Viper with swift bones thee meets Trayling her back in path direct and strait The Cerast more diffused in way thee greets With crooked turning on scales make sounds full great Like as a ship tossed by the Western winde Sounds afarre off moved now here now there So that by noyse of shrilling sides we finde His furrowes turned in Seas and water sphere The quantity of this horned Serpent is not great it exceedeth not two cubits in length the colour of the body is branded like sand yet mingled with another pale white colour as is to be seen in a Hares skin Upon the head there are two horns and sometimes four for which occasion it hath received the name Cerastes and with these horns they deceive Birds for when they are hungry they cover their bodies in sand and only leave their horns uncovered to move above the earth which when the Birds see taking them to be Worms they light upon them and so are devoured by the Serpent The teeth of this Serpent are like the teeth of a Viper and they stand equall and not crooked In stead of a back-bone they have a gristle throughout their body which maketh them more flexible and apt to bend every way for indeed they are more flexible then any other Serpent They have certain red strakes crosse their back like a Crocodile of the earth and the skins of such as are bred in Egypt are very soft stretching like a Cheverell-glove both in length and breadth as it did appear by a certain skin taken off from one being dead for being stuffed with Hay it shewed much greater then it was being alive but in other Countreys the skins are not so I have heard this History of three of these Serpents brought out of Turkey and given to a Noble man of Venice alive who preserved them alive in a great Glasse made of purpose upon sand in that Glasse neeâ—the fire The description as it here followeth was taken by John Faltoner an English Travailer saying They were three in number whereof one was thrice so big as the other two and that was a female and she was said to be their Mother she had laid at that time in the sands four or five Egges about the bignesse of Pigeons Egges She was in length three foot but in breadth or quantity almost so big as a mans Arm her head was flat and broad as two fingers the apple of the eye black all the other part being white Out of her eye-lids grew two horns but they were short ones and those were truly Horns and not flesh The neck compared with the body was very long and small all the upper part of the skin was covered with scales of ash-colour and yet mixed with black The tail is at it were brown when it was stretched out And this was the description of the old one the other two being like to her in all things except in their horns for being small they were not yet grown Generally all these horned Serpents have hard dry scales upon their belly wherewithall they make a noyse when they go themselves and it is thus described by Nicander Nunc potes actutum insidiatoremque Cerasten Noscere vipereum veluti genus huic quia dispar Non is corpus habet sed qnatuor aut duo profert Cornua cum mutila videatur Vipera fronte Squalidus albenti color est In English thus You well may know the treacher Cerasts noyse A Viper-kinde whose bodies much agree Yet these four hâ—rns and brandy colour poyse Where Viper none but forehead plain we see There is no Serpent except the Viper that can so long indure thirst as this horned Serpent for they seldome or never drink and therefore I think they are of a Vipers kinde for besides this also it is observed that their young ones do come in and out of their bellies as Vipers doe They live in hatred with all kinde of Serpents and especially with Spiders The Hawes of Aegypt also do destroy horned Serpents and Scorpions but about Thebes in Aegypt there are certain sacred Snakes as they are termed which have horns on their head and these are harmlesse unto men and beasts otherwise all these Serpents are virulent and violent against all creatures especially men yet there be certain men in Lybia called Psilli which are in a league or rather in a naturall concord with horned Serpents For if they be bitten by them at any time they receive no hurt at all and besides if they be brought unto any man that is bitten with one of these Serpents before the poyson be spread all over his body they help and cure him for if they finde him but lightly hurt they only spit upon the wound and so mitigate the pain but if they finde him more deeply hurt then they take much water within their teeth and first wash their own mouth with it then spit out the water into a pot and make the sick man to drink it up Lastly if the poyson be yet strong they lay their naked bodies upon the naked poysoned body and so break the force of the poyson And this is thus described by the Poet saying Audivi Lybicos Psyllos quos aspera Sirâ—is Serpentumque ferax patria alit populos Non ictu inflictum diro morsuve venenum Laedere quin laesis ferre opem reliquis Non vi radicum proprio sed corpore juncto That is to say The Lybian Psylli which Serpent-breeding Syrtes dwell As I have heard do cure poyson stings and bites Nor hurt themselves but it in other quell By no roots force but joyning bodies quites When a horned Serpent hath bitten a man or beast first about the wound there groweth hardnesse and then pustules Lastly black earthy and pale matter the genital member standeth out straight and never falleth he falleth mad this eyes grow dim and his nerves immanuable and upon the head of the wound groweth
forward but winde to and fro crooking like an Indenture for by reason thereof this Serpents large body cannot so easily and with the like speed turn to follow and persue as it can directly forward It is a very dangerous Serpent to meet withal and therefore not only the valiantest man but also the strongest beast is and ought justly to be afraid thereof for his treacherous deceits and strength of body for when it hath gotten the prey or booty he beclapseth it with his tail and giveth it fearful blows in the mean time fasteneth his jaws or chaps to the man or beast and sucketh out all the bloud till it be fully satisfied and like a Lyon he beateth also his own sides setting up the spires of his body when he assalteth any adversary or taketh any resisting booty I take this to be the same called in Slcilia Serpaserena which is sometimes as long as a man and as great as the arm about the wrist In the heat of Summer they get themselves to the Mountain and there seize upon cattel of all sorts as often as anger or wrath enforceth them The nature of it is very hot and therefore venomous in the second degree wherefore when it hath bitten any there followeth putrefaction and rottennesse as flesh where water lyeth betwixt the skin like as in the Dropsie for besides the common affections it hath with the Viper and the biting thereof alike in all things more deadly and unresistible evils followeth as drouzy sleepinesse and Lethargy and pain in the belly especially the Golick pain in the liver and stomach killing within two days if remedy be not provided The cure is like the cure of the Vipers biting Take the seed of Lettice and Flax-seed Savory beaten or stamped and wilde Rue wilde Betony and Daffadil two drams in three cups of Wine and drink the same immediately after the drinking hereof drink also two drams of the root of Centaury or Hartwort Nosewort or Gentian or Sesamine And thus much for a description of this venomous Serpent one of the greatest plagues to man and beast in all those Countries or places wherein it is ingendered and it is not the least part of English happinesse to be freed by God and Nature from such noysome virulent and dangerous neighbours Of the NEVTE or WATER-LIZARD THis is a little black Lizard called Wassermoll Wasseraddex that is a Lizard of the Water In French Tassot and in Italian Marasandola which word is derived from Marasso a Viper because the poyson hereof is like the poyson of Vipers and in the Greek it may be termed Enudros Sauros They live in standing waters or pools as in ditches of Towns and Hedges The colour as we have said is black and the length about two fingers or scarse so long Under the belly it is white or at least hath some white small spots on the sides and belly yet sometimes there are of them that are of a dusty earthy colour and towards the tail yellowish The skin is strong and hard so as a knife can scarse cut the same and being cut there issueth out a kinde of white mattery liquor like as is in Salamanders Being taken it shutteth the mouth so hard as it cannot be easily opened neither doth it endevour to bite although it be plucked and provoked The tongue is very short and broad and the teeth so short and small as they are scarcely visible within the lips Upon the fore feet it hath four fingers or claws but upon the hinder-feet it hath five The tail standeth out betwixt the hinder-legs in the middle like the figure of a wheel-whirl or rather so contracted as if many of them were conjoyned together and the void or empty places in the conjunctions were filled The tail being cut off liveth longer then the body as may be seen in every days experience that is by motion giveth longer signes and token of life This Serpent is bred in fat waters and soils and sometimes in the ruines of old walls especially they delight in white muddy waters hiding themselves under stones in the same water if there be any and if not then under the banks side of the earth for they seldome come to the land They swim underneath the water and are rarely seen at the top Their egges are not past so big as pease and they are found hanging together in clusters One of these being put alive into a glasse of water did continually hold his head above the water like as Frogs do so that thereby it may be conjectured it doth often need respiration and keepeth not under water except in fear and seeking after meat There is nothing in nature that so much offendeth it as Salt for so soon as it is laid upon Salt it endeavoureth with all might and main to run away for it biteth and stingeth the little beasts above measure so that it dyeth sooner by lying in Salt where it cannot avoid then it would by suffering many stripes for being beaten it liveth long and dyeth very hardly It doth not like to be without water for if you try one of them and keep it out of water but one day it will be found to be much the worse Being moved to anger it standeth upon the hinder-legs and looketh directly in the face of him that hath stirred it so continueth til all the body be white through a kind of white humor or poyson that it swelleth outward to harm if it were possible the person that did provoke it And by this is their venomous nature observed to be like the Salamander although their continual abode in the water maketh their poyson the more weak Some say that if in France a Hog do eat one of these he dyeth thereof and yet doth more safely eat the Salamander But in England it is otherwise for I have seen a Hog without all harm carry in his mouth a Newt and afterward eat it There be some Apothecaries which do use this Newt in stead of Skinks or Crocodiles of the earth but they are deceived in the vertues and operation and do also deceive other for there is not in it any such wholesome properties and therefore not to be applyed without singular danger And thus much may suffice to be said for this little Serpent or Water-creeping creature Of the PELIAS AEtius making mention of the Elaps and Pelias two kindes of Serpents doth joyntly speak of them in this sort saying that the signes of these Serpents were so common and vulgarly known that there was no descriptions of them among the ancient Writers But the Pelias biting causeth putrefaction about the wound or bitten place but yet not very dangerous and it bringeth obfuscation or dimnesse to the eyes by reason that as the poyson is universally distributed over all the body so it hath most power over the tenderest part namely the eyes It is cured by a Ptisane with Oyl in drink and a decoction of such Docks as grow in
ditches and other simple medicines such as are applyed to the curing of the Yellow-jaundise The eyes must be washed with the urine of a childe or young man which never knew any woman carnally and this may be applyed either simply and alone or else by Brine and Pickle so also must the head After that the body is purged anoint it with Balsamum and Honey and take an Eye-salve to sharpen again and recover the sight and for this cause it is very good to weep for by evacuation of tears the venom also will be expelled But if the eyes grow to pain then let their Eye-salve be made more temperate and gentle to keep the head and brain from stupefaction And thus much for the Pelias out of Aetius Of the PORPHYRE THere is among the Indians a Serpent about the bignesse of a span or more which in outward aspect is like to the most beautiful and well coloured Purple the head hereof is exceeding white and it wanteth teeth This Serpent is fought for in the highest Mountains for out of him they take the Sardius stone And although he cannot bite because he wanteth teeth yet in his rage when he is persecuted he casteth forth a certain poyson by vomit which causeth putrefaction where ever it lighteth But if it be taken alive and be hanged up by the tail it rendereth a double one whiles it is alive the other when it is dead both of them black in colour but the first resembleth black Amber And if a man take but so much of the first black venom as is the quantity of a Sesamine seed it killeth him presently making his brains to fall out at his nostrils but the other worketh neither so speedily nor after the same manner for it casteth one into a Consumption and killeth within the compasse of a year But I finde Aelianus Volateran and Textor to differ from this relation of Ctesias for they say that the first poyson is like to the drops of Almond trees which are congealed into a gum and the other which cometh from it when he is dead is like to thin mattery water Unto this Porphyre I may add the Palmer Serpent which Strabo writeth doth kill with an unrecoverable poyson and it is also of a Scarlet colour to the loyns or hinder-parts Of the PRESTER ALthough there be many Writers which confound together the Prester the Dipsas and make of them but one kinde or Serpent of divers names yet seeing on the contrary there he as many or more which do distinguish or divide them and make them two in nature different one from another the Dipsas killing by thirst and the Prester by heat as their very names do signifie therefore I will also trace the steps of this latter opinion as of that which is more probable and consonant to truth The Grecians call it Prester of Prethein which signifieth to burn or inflame and Tremellius and Junius think that the Serpents called fiery Serpents which did sting the Israelitos in the Wildernesse were Presters We finde in Suidas Prester for the fire of Heaven or for a cloud of fire carryed about with a vehement strong winde and sometimes lightenings And it seemeth that this is indeed a fiery kinde of Serpent for he himself always goeth about with open mouth panting and breathing as the Poet writeth Oraque distendens avidus fumantia Prester Inficil ut laesus tumida membra gorat Which may be Englished thus The greedy Presters wide-open foming mouth Infects and swelleth making the members by unâ—outh When this Serpent hath struck or wounded there followeth an immeasurable swelling distraction conversion of the bloud to matter and corrupt inflamation taking away freedom or easinesse of aspiration likewise dimming the sight of making the hair to fall off from the head at last suffocation as it wereby fire which is thus described by Mantuan upon the person of one Narsidus saying as followeth Ecce subit facies leto diversa fluenti Narsidium Marsi cultorem torridus agri Percussit prester illi rubor igneus ora Succendii tenditque cutem pereunte figura Misoens ouncta tumor toto jam corpore major Humanumque egressa modum super omnia membra Efflatur Sanies latè tollente veneno Ipse late penitus congesto corpore mersus Nec lorica tenet distenti corporis auctum Spumeus accenso non sic exundat aheno Vndarum cumulus nec tanto carbasa Core Curvavere sinus tumides j am non capit artus Informis globus confuso pondere triâ—â—â— Intactum voluctum rostris epulasque duturum Haud impune feris non aufi tradere busto Nondum siante modo crescens fugere cadaver Which may be thus Englished Lo suddenly a divers fate the joyful current stayed Narsidius which Marsinus mirror did adere By burning sting of scorching Prester dead was layed For fiery colour his face enflam'd not as before The first appearing visage faild all was out-stretcht Swelling cover'd all and bodies grosnesse doubled Surpassing humane bounds and members all ore reacht Aspiring venom spreads matter blown in carkasse troubled The man lyeth drownd within swoln bodies banks No girdle can his monstrous growth contain Not so are waters swoln with rage of sandy flanks Nor sails bend down to blustering Corus wain Now can it not the swelling sinews keep in hold Deformed globe it is and trunk ore-come with waight Vntoucht of flying Fowls no beaks of young or old Do him dare eat or beasts full wilde upon the body bait But that they die No man to â—ury in earth or fire Durst once come nigh nor stand to look upon that haplesse cste For never ceased the heat of corps though dead to swell Therefore afraid they ran away with speedy pace The cure of the poyson of this Serpent is by the Physitians found out to be wilde Purslain also the flowers and stalk of the bush the Beavers stone called Castoreum drunk with Opoponax and Rew in Wine and the little Sprat-fish in diet And thus much of this fire-burning venomous Serpent Of the RED SERPENT THis kinde of Serpent being a Serpent of the Sea was first of all found out by Pelicerius Bishop of Montpelier as Rondoletus writeth and although some have taken the same for the Myrus or Berus of which we have spoken already yet is it manifest that they are deceived for it hath gills covered with a bony covering and also fins to swim withal much greater then those of the Myrus which we have shewed already to be the male Lamprey This Serpent therefore for the outward proportion thereof is like to the Serpents of the land but of a red or purplish colour being full of crooked or oblique lines descending from the back to the belly and dividing or breaking that long line of the back which beginneth at the head and so stretcheth forth to the tail The opening of his mouth is not very great his teeth are very sharp and like a saw his gils like scaly fishes
betwixt these but that at certain times of the year they forsake the water when it draweth or falleth low and so betake themselves to the land They live in the water and in the earth but they lay their egges on the land in hedges or in dung-hils and especially in those waters which are most corrupt as in pools where there is store of Frogs Leaches and Newts and but few fishes as in the Lakes about Puteoli and Naples and in England all over the Fens as Ramsey Holland Ely and other such like places and when they swim they bear their breast above the water They abound also in Corcyra and about Taracina in Italy and in the Lake Nyclea and especially in Galabria as the Poet writeth Est etiam ille malus Calabris in saltibus Anguis Squanimea convolvens sublato pectore terga Atque notis longam maculosus grandibus alvum Qui dum amnes ulli rumpuntur fontibus dum Vere madent udo terrae ac pluvialibus austris Stagna colit ripisque habitans hicpiscibus atram Improbus ingluviem ranisque loquacibus explet Postquam exhausta palus terraeque ardore debiscu◠Exilit in siccum flammantia lumina torquens Saevit agris asperque siti atque exterritus 〈◊〉 Which may be thus Englished That evil Snake in the Calabrian coasts abides Rowling his scaly back by holding up the breast And with great spots upon large belly glides When as the Rivers streams in Fountains all are ceast For whiles the moistened Spring with rain from South wind falls It haunts the Pools and in the water all black it feeds In ravening wise both Fish and Frogs do fill his gall For why when Summers drought enforce then must it needs Fly to dry land rowling his flaming eye Rage in the fields to quench his thirst full dry There be some Writers that affirm that there is a certain stone in a Water-Snakes head which it easteth or vomiteth up when the skin thereof is fleyed from the body and after it is so cast up it must be received into a piece of silk the vertue whereof is to be proved after this manner Fill a brasse Caldron or Kettle full of water and about the same vessel so filled binde this stone fast as it were to the handle or bayl thereof and you shall finde that every day this stone so remaineth bound to the Kettle that the water will decrease eighteen ounces And this Kiranides affirmeth that he bound to a woman that had the Dropsie and she was thereby delivered from her disease for every day he found that her belly did fall the quantity of four fingers until it came to the natural bignesse and then he took it off for he saith that if he had not then taken it off it would also have dryed up the native humidity In like sort the vertue of this stone is applyed against the rheume in the legs or any flux of the eyes ears or head but the use of it must not exceed the quantity of three hours at a time It also driveth out of the body all venomous Worms and is a special remedy against their biting and stinging This stone is also called Serpentinus and Draconites but it is questionable whether it be generated in the head of the Snake or by their vaporous breath concurring together in the Spring or Winter season Some of these stones are said to be of a blewish green colour and the form thereof pyramidal Albertus saith he hath seen one of them that was black and not lightsome only about the edges of it there was some palenesse apparent and in the superficies or upper part thereof there was as he writeth a beautiful picture of a Snakes proportion and the vertue thereof did put to flight venomous Beasts and also cure their harmful poysons Such like things we have already shewed to be in the stone which the Toad is said to have but this stone is more likely to be the Ophites for in the Castle of Tangra once the seat or habitation of Charles the fourth there is a Chappel wherein are many precious stones wrought in the walls and doors and among divers other these Ophites But whereas there is a pyramidal form attributed to these stones I take it therefore that it is the same which Pliny calleth Glossapetra for in shew it resembleth the tongue of a Snake and the tongue of a Snake being great or broad at the root and smaller toward the end or tip thereof is rightly said to be of a pyramidal form and among the Germans it is called by a peculiar word Naterzungeu that is Snakes-tongue And such a kinde of stone as this Snakes-tongue as Agricola and some other Authors write is found in a certain earth neer Linuburgh in Saxony And Conradus Gesner affirmeth that there is a certain Town in Germany called Aenipo◠where there is one of these stones half a cubit long and therefore it seemeth that they are not all generated in Serpents or Snakes heads Among the French-men this stone is called Sugne because there be Serpents seen in it twyning their tails together or folding them one within another There was wont to be a superstitious way to extract or expresse this stone from out of the Snake which was done in this manner First when they had taken the Snake alive they did presently hang her up by the tail then just underneath her they did make a suffumigation of Laurel and so did conjure the Snake saying Per Dominum qui te creavit lapidem tuum quem in capite tenes te instanter ejicere jubeo This kinde of enchanting charm I hold not worthy to be translated and yet let me not be blamed for the relation of it seeing it is pertinent to this story to know all the good and evill about these Serpents And therefore not to expresse the same at all might argue in me either ignorance or silly precisenesse and again on the other side to make it vulgar might bring me into suspicion of some approbation therefore let the Reader know it from me but understand it from some other And for mine own opinion I account no better of these Snake-stones then I do of the Toad-stones concerning which I have already given my opinion in another place And therefore what here is related of this stone let it be examined and then be either received or refused Many and almost infinite are the Epithets which are given to Snakes whereby their nature is expressed as Aliger anguis the winged Snake black fierce blew greedy wilde cold Gorgonean wreathen sliding deadly lightsome spotted martial threatning purple wholesome scaly terrible winding grim swelling fearful venomous green infolded or implicit horrible hissing Marsian Maurian pestilent retorted and such other like as it hath pleased the several Authors writing hereof to ascribe and attribute unto it Which we will not prosecute with any explication but only leave them to the Readers pleasure being only content to nominate
Beasts do many times die There is another kinde of Phalangium that breedeth altogether in the pulse called Ervum which is like unto Tares and likewise in the Peach tree which Nicander and Aetius tearm Cranocalaptes and Dioscorides nameth it Kephalokroustes because it is so presumptuous bold as to strike at the hands of travellers by the High-ways when as either it passeth down in gliding manner by her fine thread or that she tumbleth down without any stay of thread or other support It is a small creature to see to keeping on the pace very fearfully nodding with the head reeling and as it were staggering being great and heavy in the belly somewhat long of body and of a greenish colour It carryeth a sting in the top of her neck and striking at any she commonly aimeth at those parts which are about the head And as Actius saith En tois phullois tes per seias trepheteis kai ta ptera echei homoia tais en tais kustais psuchais That is they are nourished in Peach tree-leaves and they have wings like unto Butter-flies that are found amongst Barley Whereupon the Scholiast seemeth to insinuate to us that this kinde of Spider is winged which no man as I judge hath hitherto observed Ponzettus and Ardoynus do take the Cranocalaptes to be a Tarantula but herein they are both mistaken as was Rabbi Moses before them The Spider called Sclerocephalus in form differeth but little from the former It hath a head as hard as a stone and the lineaments and proportion of the body do much resemble those small creatures which are seen about Lamps lights or candles in the night time There cometh in the last place to be described the Phalangie Spider of Apulia commonly known by the name of Tarantula taking his denomination from the Countrey of Tarentum where there are found great store and plenty of them Ferdinandus Ponzettus imagineth that it hath but only six feet and Ardoynus is of the same judgement and further faigneth that it hath a stretched out tail Rasis calleth a Torantula by the name of Sypta Albucasis Alsari Rabbi Moses Aggonsarpa Avicen Sebigi Doctor Gilbert Taranta therein following Ardoynus which maketh two sorts of Tarantulaes the one of a brown the other of a yellow colour and cleer shining such as are to be found in Egypt Pliny as you read a little before said that the Phalangium was not known in Italy but in these days they are found throughout all the Southern parts of that Countrey especially nigh the Sea-shore as both Harvest-men and Hunters can well testifie by their own wofull experience Ponzettus was much deceived when in his third Book and xv chapter entreating of the Scorpion he expresly affirmeth the Phalanx to be such a venomous flye It is a vengible and cruel creature as Alexander ab Alexandro saith and to be touched horrible venomous and pestilent and most especially their biting is exceeding venomous in the parching heat of the Summer but at other seasons of the year not so great There be many sorts of Spiders found in very cold Countries but no Phalangies at all or if there be any yet have they very little poyson in them and nothing comparable to them of hotter Climates All the sorts of Phalangies do lay their Egges in a net or web which for the purpose they make very strong and thick and sit upon them in very great number and when their brood is increased to some growth they kill their dam by their hard embracements and fling her clean away and further casting off al fatherly affection they many times serve the male with the same sauce if they can come handsomely by him for he is a helper to the female in sitting over their egges They hatch at one time three hundred as hath been seen by the testimony of Bellonius in his Book Singul. observat chap. 68. The Tatantulaes lie commonly lurking in holes chinks and chaps of the earth and with their teeth they bite and wound at unawares incircumspect Mowers and harvest-folks and rash Huntsmen who think of no such matter and therefore they that are acquainted with their sleights do wear Boots and Gloves on their hands and legs for their further defence so often as they go forth either to hawking hunting or to reaping and mowing or any such like labour in the common fields All these Spiders are venomous even naturally for that is so setled and deeply fastened in them as it can by no means be eradicated or taken away Neither suck they this venom and poysonous quality from plants or herbs as many men think which in very truth they never so much as tast of neither do they purchase this venomous complexion and nature from any naughty hurtful and malignant quality that is in their meat by reason their chief food and sustenance is Flyes Gnats and Bees and without question they can suck and draw no such cacochymical juyce from their bodies If the Formicarian which I call the Pismire-like Phalangie do bite any man there will presently follow most fearful accidents for it bringeth an exceeding great tumor upon the wounded place the knees are loose and seeble trembling of the heart and decay of strength do succeed and sometimes it induceth death it self Nicander saith that they who are bitten of this kinde of Spider do fall into such a profound sleep as that they will never be awaked for they have and suffer that which Histories report of Cleopatra Queen of Egypt who to escape the fingers of Augustus because she would not be brought to Rome in triumph caused two Serpents called Asps to be set to her breasts which did sting her to death whose nature is to give a heavinesse and sleep without any shrinking or mark in the skin only putting forth a gentle sweat out of the face as if one were in a trance and hard to be awaked The Spider called Agrostis maketh but a small wound with her biting and in a manner without any pain at all and no ways deadly unlesse it be but slightly regarded or that no care be had for the cure in the beginning The Phalangie that is called Dusderus which is fashioned like a Wasp if he hurt any one by his biting it causeth the same accidents that the azure or blewish-coloured Spider doth but yet not altogether so terrible and vehement And besides the Dusder-spider with her poyson bringeth a wasting and pining away of the whole body by degrees without any great sense If a man be poysoned with that kinde of Spider which is found among pulse and is as I said before like unto Spanish Flies there will presently arise certain pustules risings or swellings much like unto blisters as if one were scalded with hot water in which swellings there will commonly be much yellowish matter besides the patient is much disquieted vexed and too much out of order the eyes seem to be writhed deformed looking asquint on the one side the tongue
silent and cease wondering at the amphitheatricall fights of the Romans which were made with seats and scaffolds to behold Playes and sights and where were presented to the Spectators the bloudy fights of Elephants Bears and Lions sithence a small Spider dare challenge to the field and fight hand to hand with a black and blew Serpent and not only to come down to him in daring wise but also victoriously to triumph over him entirely possessing all the spoyl Who would not marvail that in so small or in a manner no body at all which hath neither bones nor sinnewes nor flesh nor scarce any skin there could be so great force such incredible audacity and courage such sharp and hard bitings and invincible fury Surely we must conclude necessarily that this cannot proceed altogether from their valiant stomacks but rather from GOD himself In like sort they dare buckle with Toads of all sorts both of the land and water and in a singular combate overthrow and destroy them which thing not only Pliny and Albertus do recite and set down for a certain truth but Erasmus also in his Dialogue entituled De Amicitia maketh mention of reporting how a certain Monk lying fast asleep on whose mouth a foul Toad sate and yet by the Spiders means was freed from all hurt Yea they dare enter the combat with winged and stinged Hornets having not soft but stiffe bodies and almost as hard as horn who although she many times breaketh through their Cobwebs with main strength as rich men undoe and make a way through Lawes with Gold and by that means many times scape scot-free yet for all that at length being over-mastered hand to hand in single combat and intangled and insnarled with the binding pastinesse and tenacious glewish substance of the Web she payeth a deer price for her breaking into anothers house and possession yeelding at length to the Spiders mercy I will not omit their temperance a vertue in former ages proper only to men but now it should seem peculiar to Spiders For who almost is there found if age and strength permit that contenteth himself with the love of one as he ought but rather applyeth his minde body and wandering affections to strange loves But yet Spiders so soon as they grow to ripenesse of age do choose them Mates never parting till death it self make the separation And as they cannot abide Corrivalls if any Wedlock-breakers and Cuckold-makers dare be so snappish to enter or so insolently proud as to presse into anothers house or Cottage they reward him justly with condigne punishment for his temerarious enterprize and flagitious fact First by their cruell bitings then with banishment or exile and oftentimes with death it self So that there is not any one of them that dare offer villany or violence to anothers Mate or seek by any means unlawfully to abuse her There is such restraint such strict orders such faithfull dealing uprightnesse of conscience and Turtle love amongst them Further if you look into their house-keeping you shall finde there is nothing more frugall then a Spider more laborious cleanly and fine For she cannot abide that even the least end or piece of her thred to be lost or to be placed and set to no use or profit and they ease and relieve themselves by substitutes that supply their rooms and take pains for them for whilest the Female weaveth the Male applyeth himself to hunting if either of them fall sick and be weak then one of them doth the work of both that their merits and deserts may be alike So sometimes the Female hunteth whilest the Male is busie about Net-making if the one stand in need of the others help and furtherance But yet commonly the Female-Spider being instructed of her Parents when she was young and docible the art of spinning and weaving which custome was amongst us also in times past beginneth the Cobweb and her belly is sufficient to minister matter enough for such a piece of work whether it be that the nature or substance of the belly groweth to corruption at sun-set and appointed time as Democritus thought or whether there be within them a certain lanigerous fertility naturally as in Silk-worms Aristotle is of opinion that the matter is outward as it were a certain Shell or pill and that it is unwound loosened and drawn out by their fine weaving and spinning But howsoever it be certain it is they will not by their good wills lose the least jot of a threds end but very providently see to all though never so little The love they bear to their young breed is singular both in the care they have for their fashioning and framing to good orders and for their education otherwise for the avoidance of idlenesse For the Male and Female do by turns sit upon their Egges and so by this way interchangeably taking courses they do stirre up quicken move and encrease naturall and lively heat in them and although it hath been sundry times observed that they have brought forth three hundred young ones at once yet do they train them up all alike without exception to labour parsimony and pains-taking and inure them in good order to fashion and frame all things fit for the weaving craft I have often wondred at their cleanlinesse when to keep all things from nastinesse or stinking I have beheld with mine eyes those that were lean ill-favoured and sickly to come glyding down from the upper to the lower part of their buildings and there to exonerate nature at some hole in the Web lest either their shop work-house or frame might be distained or annoyed And this is sufficient to have spoken of their politicall civil and domesticall vertues Now will I proceed to discourse of their skill in weaving wherewith Pallas was so much offended for the Scholar excelled her Mistres and in fine cunning and curious workmanship did farre surpasse hers First then let us consider the matter of the Web whose substance is tough binding and glutinous pliant and will stick to ones fingers like Bird-lime and of such a matter it is compounded as it neither loseth his clamminesse and fast-holding quality either by siccity or moysture The matter whereof it is made is such as can never be consumed wasted or spent whilest they live and being so endlesse we must needs here admire and honour the never ending and infinite power of the great God for to seek out some naturall reason for it or to ascribe it to naturall causes were in my minde meer madnesse and folly The Autumnall Spiders called Lupi or Hâ—lci Wolves or Hunters are thought to be the most artificiall and ingenious For these draw out a thred finer and thinner then any Silk and of such a subtilty that their whole Web being folded together will scarce be so heavy as one fine thred of Linnen being weighed together Edovardus Monimius hath very finely and eloquently described both the Males and Females Heptam lib. 7. in these words
water but want respiration and likewise they lay their Egges and sleep upon the dâ—y land They have a very slow and easie pace and thereupon Pauvius calleth it Tardigrada and also there is a Proverb Testudineus incessus for a slow and soft pace when such a motion is to be expressed The Tortoise never casteth his coat no not in his old age The voyce is an abrupt and broken hissing not like to the Serpents but much more loud and diffused The male is very salacious and given to carnal copulation but the female is not so for when she is attempted by the male they fight it out by the teeth and at last the male overcometh whereat he rejoyceth as much as one that in a hard conflict fight or battail hath won a fair Woman the reason of this unwillingnesse is because it is exceeding painful to the female They engender by riding or covering one another When they have laid their Egges they do not sit upon them to hatch them but lay them in the Earth covered and there by the heat of the Sun is the young one formed and cometh forth at due time without any further help from his Parents They are accounted crafty and subtle in their kinde for subtlenesse is not only ascribed to things that have a thin bloud but also to those that have thick skins hides and covers such as the Tortoise and Crocodile have The Tortoise is an enemy to the Partridge as Philes and Aellanus write Also the Ape is as fraid thereof as it is of the Snail and to conclude whatsoever enemy it hath it is safe enough as long as it is covered with his shell and clingeth fast to the earth beneath and therefore came the proverb Oikos philos oikos aristos That house which is ones friend is the best house The Poets give a fabulous reason why the Tortoise doth ever carry his house upon his back which is this They say that on a time Jupiter bad all living creatures to a banquet or Marriage feast and thither they all came at the time appointed except the Tortoise and she at last also appeared at the end of the feast when the meat was all spent whereat Jupiter wondered and asked her why she came no sooner Then it answered him Oikos philos oikos aristos at which answer Jupiter being angry adjudged her perpetually to carry her house on her back and for this cause they fable that the Tortoise is never separated from her house Flaminius the Roman disswading the Achaeans from attempting the Island of Zacynthus used this argument and so afterward T. Livius Caeterum sicut Testudinem ubi collecta in suum tegumen est tutam ad omnes ictus vidi esse ubi exerit partes aliquas quodcunque nudavit obnoxium atque infirmum habere Haud dissimiliter vobis Achaei clausis undique maris quod intra Peloponnesum est termino ea jungere vobis juncta tueri facile si semel aviditate plura amplectendi hinc excedatis nuda vobis omnia quae extra sint exposita ad omnes ictus esse Thus far Pliny That is to say Even as when the Tortoise is gathered within the compasse of her shell then is it safe and free from all stroaks and feeleth no violence but whensoever she putteth forth a limb or part then is it naked infirm and easie to be harmed so is it with you Achaeans for by reason of the inclosed seat of Peloponnesus within the Straights of the Sea you may well winde all that together and being conjoyned as well defend it But if once your avidous and covetous mindes to get more appear and stretch it self beyond those limits you shall lay open your naked infirmity and weaknesse to all force blows and violence whatsoever Wherefore the Tortoise careth not for flies and men with good armour care not much for light and easie adversaries Alciatus hath a witty Emblem of a Tortoise to expresse a good huswife and that the fame of her vertues spreadeth much further then either beauty or riches Alma Venus quaenam haec facies quid denotat illa Testudo molli quam pede diva premis Me sic effinxit Phidias sexumque referri Foemineum nostra jussit ab effigie Quodque manere domi tacitas debet esse puellas Supposuit pedibus talia signa meis Which may be Englished thus Loves holy God what means that ugly face What doth that Tortoise signifie indeed Which thou ô God â—desse under soft foot dost pace Declare what means the same to me with speed Such is the shape that Phidias did me frame And bade me go resemble Womankinde Te teach them silence and in house remain Such pictures underneath my feet you finde There is a manifold use of Tortoises especially of their cover or shell and likewise of their flesh which cometh now to be handled And first of all the ancient ornaments of Beds Chambers Tables and Banquetting houses was a kinde of artificial work called Carvilius and this was framed in gold and silver brasse and wood Ivory and Tortoise-shels but Modo luxuria non fuerit content a ligno jam lignum emi testudinem facit That is to say Ryot not contented sought precious frames of wood and again the use of wood caused Tortoise-shells to be deerly bought and thereof also complained the Poet Juvenal where he saith Nemo curabat Rivalis in Oceani fluctu testudo nataret Clarum Trojugenis factura nobile fulorum In English thus Then none did care for Tortoise in the Ocean flood To make the noble beds for Trojans bloud We have shewed already that there are certain people of the East called Chelophagi which live by eating of Tortoises and with their shells they cover their houses make all their vessels row in them upon the water as men use to row in boats and make them likewise serve for many other uses But as concerning the eating of the flesh of Tortoises the first that ever we read that used this ill diet were the Amazons according as Coelius Rhod and other Authors writeth Besides Aloysius Cadamustus affirmeth that he himself did tast of the flesh of a Tortoise and that it was white in colour much like unto Veal and not unpleasant But Rasis is of a clean contrary opinion condemning it for very unsavory and unwholesome because the taste and temperament thereof is betwixt the Land and the Water it being a Beast that liveth in both Elements And in eating hereof the Grecians have a proverb Chelones kreas he phagein he me phagein That is either eat Tortoise flesh or eat it not Meaning that when we eat it we must eat nothing else and therefore must be filled sufficiently only with that kinde of meat For to eat little breedeth fretting in the belly and to eat much is as good as a purgation according to the observation of many actions which being done frigide ignoviter that is coldly and slothfully to halfs
Tortoises one of the Earth a second of the Sea a third called Lutaria and the fourth called Swyda living in Sweet-waters and this is called by the Portugals Cagado and Gagado the Spaniards Galopag and the Italians Gaiandre de aqua There are of this kinde found in Helvetia neer to Zurick at a Town called Andelfinge but the greatest are found in the River Ganges in India where their shells are as great as tuns and Damascen writeth that he saw certain Embassadours of India present unto Augustus Caesar at Antiochia a Sweet-water Tortoise which was three cubits broad They breed their young ones in Nilus They have but a small Milt and it wanteth both a bladder and reins They breed their young ones and lay their Egges on the dry land for in the water they die without respiration therefore they dig a hole in the earth wherein they lay their Egges as it were in a great ditch of the quantity of a Barrel and having covered them with earth depart away from them for thirty days afterwards they come again and uncover their Egs which they finde formed into young ones those they take away with them into the water and these Tortoises at the inundation of Nilus follow the Crocodiles and remove their nests and egges from the violence of the flouds There was a magical and superstitious use of these Sweet-water Tortoises against Hail for if a man take one of these in his right hand and carry it with the belly upward round about his Vineyard and so returning in the same manner with it and afterward lay it upon the back so as it cannot turn on the belly but remain with the face upward all manner of Clowds should passe over that place and never empty themselves upon that Vineyard But such Diabolical and foolish observations were not so much as to be remembred in this place were it not for their sillinesse that by knowing them men might learn the weaknesse of humane wisdom when it erreth from the Fountain of all science and true knowledge which is Divinity and the most approved operations of Nature And so I will say no more in this place of the Sweet-water Tortoise Of the TORTOISE of the Sea IT were unproper and exorbitant to handle the Sea-tortoise in this place were it not because it liveth in both elements that is both the water and the land wherefore seeing the Earth is the place of his generation as the Sea is of his food and nourishment it shall not be amisse nor improper I trust to handle this also among the Serpents and creeping things of the earth Pliny calleth this Sea-tortoise Mus Marinus a Mouse of the Sea and after him Albertus doth so likewise The Arabians call it Asfulhasch and the Portugals Tartaruga and in Germany Meeâ—schiltkrott which the common Fisher-men call the Souldier because his back seemeth to be armed and covered with a shield and helmet especially on the fore-part which shield is very thick strong and triangular there being great veins and sinews which go out of his neck shoulders and hips that tie on and fasten the same to his body His fore-feet being like hands are forked and twisted very strong and with which it fighteth and taketh his prey and nothing can presse it to death except the frequent strokes of Hammers And in all their members except their quantity and their feet they are much like the Tortoises of the earth for otherwise they are greater and are also black in colour They pull in their heads as occasion is ministred to them either to fight feed or be defended and their whole shell or cover seemeth to be compounded of fine Plates They have no teeth but in the brims of their beaks or or snouts are certain eminent divided things like teeth very sharp and shut upon the under lip like as the cover of a Box and in the confidence of the sharp prickles and the strength of their hands and backs they are not afraid to fight with men Their eyes are most clear and splendent casting their beams far and near and also they are of white colour so that for their brightnesse and rare whitenesse the Apples are taken out and included in Rings Chains and Bracelets They have reins which cleave to their backs as the Reins of a Bugle or Ox. Their feet are not apt to be used in going for they are like to the feet of Seals or Sea-calves serving in stead of Oars to swim withall Their legs are very long and stronger in their feet and nails then are the claws of the Lion They live in Rocks and the Sea-sands and yet they cannot live altogether in the water or on the land because they want breathing and sleep both which they perform out of the Water yet Pliny writeth that many times they sleep on the top of the water and his reason is because they lie still unmoveable except with the Water and snort like any other Creature that sleepeth but the contrary appeareth seeing they are found to sleep on the land and the snorting noise they make is but an endeavour to breath which they cannot well do on the top of the water and yet better there then in the bottom They feed in the night-time and the mouth is the strongest of all other Creatures for with it they they crush in pieces any thing be it never so hard as a stone or such things they also come and eat grasse on the dry land They eat certain little Fishes in the Winter time at which season their mouth is hardest and with these Fishes they are also baited by men and so taken Pausanias writeth that in Africa that there are Maritine Rocks called Scelestae and there dwelleth among a creature called Scynon that is Zytyron a Tortoise and whatsoever he findeth on those Rocks which is stranger in the Sea the same he taketh and casteth down headlong They engender on the Land and the female resisteth the copulation with the male until he set against her a stalk or stem of some tree or plant They lay their Egs and cover them in the earth planing it over with their breasts and in the night-time they sit upon them to hatch them Their Egs are great of divers coloursâ— having a hard shell so that the young one is not framed or brought forth within lesse compasse then a year as Aristotle writeth but Pliny saith thirty days And for as much as they cannot by Nature nor dare for accident long tarry upon the land they set certain marks with their feet upon the place where they lay their Egs whereby they know the place again and are never deceived Some again say that after they have hid their Egs in the earth forty days the female cometh the just fortieth day not failing of her reckoning and uncovereth her Egs wherein she findeth her young ones formed which she taketh out as joyfully as any man would do Gold out of the
or hip his verses be these Meriones d' apiontos iei chalkere oiston Kai r'ebale gloucon kata dexion autar oistos Antikron kata kustin up ' osteon exeperesen Ezomenos de cat ' authi philon en chersin etairon Thumon apopneion oste scolex epi gaia Keito tacheis ecd ' aima melan ree deue de gaian Id est Meriones autem in abeuntem misit aeream sagittam Et vulneravit coxam ad dextram ac sagitta E regione per vesicam sub os penetravit Residens autem illic charorum inter manus sociorum Animam efflans tanquam vermis super terram Jacebat extensus sanguisque effluebat â—ingebat autem terram That is to say But as he went away behold Meriones With brazen dart did his right hip-bone wound Which neer the bladder did the bone through pierce In friends deer hands he dyed upon the ground So stretcht upon the earth as Worm he lyed Black bloud out flowing the same bedyed Mark well the slendernesse of this comparison whereby he would give us to understand the base estate and faint heart of Harpalion For in other places having to write of noble valiant and magnanimous persons when they were ready to give up the ghost he useth the words Sphadazein Bruchein and the like to these secretly insinuating to us that they fell not down dead like impotent Cowards or timorous abjects but that they raged like Lions with grinding and gnashing their teeth together that they were blasted benummed or suddenly deprived of all their lives and senses c. But here this pusillanimous and sordidous minded man Harpalion seemed to be disgraced by his resembling to a poor Worm being peradventure a man of so small estimation and vile condition as that no greater comparison seemed to fit him It seemeth he was a man but of a faint courage and very weak withall because striking and thrusting with his Spear or Javellin at the Shield or Target of Atrides he was not able to strike it through But although this famous Poet doth so much seem to extenuate and debase a weak Worm yet others have left us in their writings such commendations of their singular use and necessity for the recovery of mans health then which no earthly thing is more pretious and have so nobilitated the worth of these poor contemptible Creatures as I think nature as yet hath scarse given any other simple Medicine or experience found out by tract of time nor knowledge of plants by long study hath revealed nor Paracelsus by the Distillations of his Limbeck hath made known to the world any secret endued with so many vertues and excellent properties against so many diseases and for proof hereof it shall not be beside the purpose to examine and describe the rarest and most probable that are recorded amongst the learned Earth-worms do mollifie conglutinate appease pain and by their terrestrial and withall water ish humidity they do contemper any affected part orderly and measurably moderating any excesse whatsoever The powder of Worms is thus prepared They use to take the greatest Earth-worm that can be found and to wrap them in Mosse suffering them there to remain for a certain time thereby the better to purge and clense them from that clammy and filthy slimynesse which outwardly cleaveth to their bodies When all this is done they presse hard the hinder-part of their bodies neer to the tail squeesing out thereby their excrements that no impurity so neer as is possible may be retained in them Thirdly they use to put them into a pot or some fit vessel with some white Wine and a little salt and straining them gently between the fingers they first of all cast away that Wine and then do they pour more Wine to them and after the washing of the Worms they must also take away some of the Wine for it must not all be poured away as some would have it and this must so often be done and renewed until the Wine be passing clear without any filth or drossinesse for by this way their slimy jelly and glutinous evil quality is clear lost and spent Being thus prepared they are to be dryed by little and little in an Oven so long till they may be brought to powder which being beaten and searsed it is to be kept in a Glasse vessel far from the fire by it self A dram of this powder being commixed with the juyce of Marigolds cureth the Epilepsie with some sweet Wine as Muscadel Bastard or the Metheglin of the Welchmen It helpeth the Dropsie With white Wine and Myrrhe the Jaundise with new Wine or Hydromel the Stone Ulcers of the Reins and Bladder It stayeth also the loosnesse of the belly helpeth barrennesse and expelleth the Secondine it asswageth the pain of the hanch or hipâ— by some the Sciatica it openeth obstructions of the Liver driveth away Tertian Agues and expelleth all Worms that are bred in the Guts being given and taken with the decoction or distilled Water of Germander Worm-wood Southern-wood Garlick Scordum Centory and such like The decoction of Worms made with the juyce of Knot-grasse or Comfery Salomons Seal or Sarasius compound cureth the disease tearmed by Physitians Diabetes when one cannot hold his water but that it runneth from him without stay or as fast as he drinketh A Glyster likewise made of the decoction of Earth-worms and also taken accordingly doth marvellously asswage and appease the pain of the Hemorrhoids There be some that give the decoction of Earth-worms to those persons that have any congealed or clotted bloud in their bodies and that with happy successe The vertue of Earth-worms is exceedingly set forth both by the Grecians and Arabians to encrease Milk in womens breasts Hieronymus Mercurialis a learned Physitian of Italy adviseth Nurses to use this confection following in case they want milk always provided that there be not a Fever joyned withall Take of the Kernels of the fruit of the Pine-tree sweet Almonds of each alike one ounce seeds of Fennel Parsley and Rapes of either alike one dram of the powder of Earth-worms washed in Wine two drams with Sugar so much as is sufficient to be given the quantity of a dram or two in the morning and after it drink some small Wine or Capon-broth boyled with Rape-seeds and Leeks Against the Tooth-ach the same powder of Earth-worms is proved singular being decocted in Oyl and dropped a little at once into the ear on the same side the pain is as Pliny witnesseth or a little of it put into the contrary ear will perform the same effect as Dioscorides testifieth And thus far of Earth-worms taken into the body and of their manifold vertues according to the evidence and testimony of Dioscorides Galen Aetius Paulus Aegineta Myrepsus Pliny and daily experience which goeth beyond the precepts of all skilful Masters for this is the Schoolmistris of all Arts as Manilius in his second Book hath written Per varios usus artem experientia fecit
meâ—itations of a Christian man and carrieth him aloft consider how the Silk-worm makes her self a tombe that is unpassable by reason of her woven work that is most compacted within in which the Worm contracted into it self seems to die and by a prodigious metamorphosis it is born anew a Butterfly a more noble creature which by the weaving of its wings flies up into the air toward heaven whereas before its burial it lived a base creeping creature fastned to the earth and glued to the food of the ground See whether a little beast that is obscure of the kinde of Locusts living amongst the stubble of the fields when she is consumed with extreme leanness which from the posture of one that is praying the French men of Narbon call Pregadion do not teach men to hold up their hands in prayer unto heaven and admonish them to observe a convenient gesture in offering up their supplications unto God What think you of the greater Beetle the Indian Rhinoceros which being bred without a female as the rest of the like kindes are dies and riseth again out of her own corruption like a Phoenix after her change when she was supposed to be wholly dead Lastly what think you of Flies which when they are drown'd many hours in water if you bury them in hot embers you shall revive them again Truly I doubt not but that amongst those serious cogitations the object whereof will seem not so serious in respect of other false appearances of men that are illiterate and unreasonable thy minde may rise to its original and fastning thy eyes on heaven inspired by God wilt cry out O the depth and with the divine Psalmist wilt return a Psalm of thanks to the Maker of Nature How wonderful are thy works O Lord In wisdom hast thou made them all the earth â—s full with thy possession So shall I have whereby I may rejoyce that however the whole course of thy age hitherto hath been but one continual act of Philosophy yet that by the rare advantage of this Present which is curious with variety I have given thee a new occasion of no less solid and profitable than of pleasant and ingenious meditation Suffer therefore that a friendly hand may convey into your Library the Off spring of the most learned Mouffet which is now at last published and brought to light and amongst so many volumes wherewith thy Study shelfs are most excellently furnished assign a place for it worthy of the Father and the Son Besides the good things mentioned that shall from thence accrew unto thee and the very great increase thou shalt reap from the hours thou shalt spend in reading the Book if I may jest with thee thy own profit shall not want its advantage lest thy proper benefit should here seem to be neglected In these leaves thou shalt finde what will drive away the plague of thy delights those beasts that are the greatest enemies to the Muses their darlings I mean the Moths that devour Books which with a greedy belly and iron teeth though their bodies be very smal prodigally waste and rend the lucubrations of whole ages Let those evil beasts that are the most deadly mischiefs of angry nature be destroyed after an ill manner to prevent the propagation whereof and to kill their infamous progeny whilest in the mean time learned writers of Books endevour to abolish their kinde utterly or their sedulous Collectors do what they can this Book which I send to thee as a remembrance of my love will teach thee in the Chapter that treats of it But let it suffice I began with a small pitcher why should the wheel run till it fill an Amphora The heat of good will and fruitfulness of the subject carry me away I must now take off my hand lest my Epistle should proceed absurdly beyond the bounds which already unawares hath increased into a volume Believe that I am affectionated to thee and how well I wish and desire to thee these lines I have written may speak What remains of thy daies which God hath appointed thee to run the race of thy life before thou receive thy heavenly reward I wish thou maist finish without any pain of minde or body and that I may speak with Aristotle writing his last Testament I pray from my heart that thou maist live longer here for it is well but if any thing happen that thou maist safely arrive and enter gloriously into the harbour of the blessed at the moment decreed Farewel From my Study in the Ides of May and the year of Mans Redemption 1634. A Preface upon the undertaking of this Argument and of the worth and use of it THat the History of Insects is worthy of the chiefest Philosophers the pains of great Aristotle and Pliny and of our Wotton in describing them doth sufficiently demonstrate After their time Conradus Gesner laboured not unfruitfully to perfect that work which they began but by reason of his short life he fainted in the beginning of the race nor was he able to put an end to it But when Pennius of blessed memory met with those papers by a better fate for fifteen years together by infinite reading of all Authors he enriched the History by the exceeding great help of Quickelbergius Clusius Camerarius Sir Thomas Knivet and of his most learned brother Edmund Jo. Jacob Roger Broun Brite but chiefly of our Bruer and some courtesie of Peter Turner That is to be lamented that he also was taken away by untimely death before he had disposed of the matter and framed it to the dignity of this work which he had heaped up together on all sides Hence it was that his Letters were full of blots and confused with doubtful Characters and they had perished had not I laid them apart when they were ready to be cast out of doors and with a great sum of money had redeemed all the torn pieces of it For I had rather something should be taken off from my own estate than from his glory who had spent so much pains in the description of Insects and so much money for the PlateÌ„s engraving wherefore this Mans and Gesners and Wottons fragments being disposed in order adding to them the light of oratory which Pennius wanted I forged the History and according to my abilities which I know how small they are I at last brought it to a period At first I was deterred from it by the difficulty of the work because I saw that Insects are hard to be explained both in respect of the unusualness of the subject and also of the sublime or rather supine negligence of our Ancestors in this point for they stood still in the very entrance and they saluted them only by the way or as the proverb is at the threshold of the door I also feared that which fell out it may be lest there should want dignity of oratory for so exquisite a Narration chiefly when as I oft observed Pennius
showres and very much rain a thing fatall to Islands do yeeld such extraordinary pure honey that it hath not the least mixture of venome and doth last a long time before it be corrupted or putrified that we do not speak of its excellent whiteness hardness sweetness hanging well together viscosity and ponderousness and other principal signs of the goodness of it But let us leave off to commend our own Countrey wherein good is to be found and set forth those Countreys which are infamous for the badness of it For the extreme bitterness the Cholchian honey and next the Corsican and in some places the Hungarian and the Sardinian hath an ill name For in Sardinia Wormwood in Corsica Rose-lawrel in Colâ—his the venomous Yew and all of them in Hungary Also the honey is venomous in Heraclea of Pontus and in the flowers of Goats-bane fading with the wetness of the spring for then the flowers contract that hurtfull venome which doth presently infect the honey-dew that falls upon them There is also another kinde of pernicious honey made which from the madness that it causeth is termed Mad-honey which Pliny conceiveth to be contracted from the flower of a certain shrub very frequently growing there in the woods Dioscorides and Aetius do not amiss impute this poyson to be caused of great plenty of the venomous herb called Libbardsbane or Wolf-wort which groweth there in that it is cured with the very same remedies as the venome of that herb is In Carina Persis Mauritania and Getulia bordering to Massesulia either by reason of vapours of the earth or by reason of the virulent and poysonous juice of the plants poysoned honey-combs are produced but are descried by their duskie or blackish colour In Trapezuntum in the Countrey of Pontus Pliny reports of a certain honey that is gathered of the flowers of the Box-tree which as it doth make those that are well sick with the noysome smell of it so those that are not well it restores to health On the trees of the Heptocometanes a people near unto Cholchis there growes a kinde of infectious honey The which poyson being drank makes men stupid and out of their wits This was sent by the enemy to the three Legions of Pompey with a token for the desire of peace they drinking very freely of it were put both besides their wits and their lives too as Strabo saith Ovid makes mention of the Corsick honey very infamous being extracted from the flower of Hemlock speaking thus I think it 's Corsick Honey and the Bee From the cold Hemlocks flowers gathered thee But yet it may seem to be not so much for Dame Natureâ— honour that she should bring forth a thing so desired of all men as honey is and so ordinarily to temper it with poyson Nay but in so doing she did not amiss so to permit it to be that thereby she might make men more cautious and lesse greedy and to excite them not only to use that which should be wholesome but to seek out for Antidotes against the unwholsomeness of it And for that cause she hath hedged the Rose about with prickles given the Bees a sting hath infected the Sage with Toad-spittle mixed poyson and that very deadly too with Honey Sugar and Manna The signs of poysoned honey are these it staines the honey-comb with a kinde of Lead-colour doth not become thick it looks of a bright shining glistering hew sharp or bitter in taste and hath a strange and 〈…〉 th smell it is far more ponderous then the other as soon as it is taken it causeth neâ—sing and a loosness of the belly accompanied with excess of sweating They which have drunk it dâ— tumble themselves up and down upon the cold earth very desirous of refrigeration The 〈◊〉 poy 〈…〉 honey hath the same symptomes with the poyson of Wolfâ—â—ane and hath the same way of cure Galen reports that two Physicians in Rome tasted but a very small quantity of poysoned honey and fell down dead in the open Market-place Against madness from eating honey Dioscorides prescribes Rue to be eaten and salt fish and honey and water to be drank but being taken they must be vomited up again and he prescribes the same remedie against this disease as he doth against Wolfs-bane and Rose-lawrel and Pliny agrees with him also he adds one singular antidote to eat a fish called a Gilt-head which also wonderfully corrects the loathing of good honey Gulielmus Placontia bids to cause vomit abundantly with syrup of Violets acetosus simplex and warm water eating salt fish before vo-miting Afterwards he gives Theriac with hot vinegar Christophanus de honest is perswades vo-miting and to set cold water under the nosthrils with the flowers of Violets Water-lillies and Fleawort But his Bezoar stone are Quince kernels bruised and given with hot water as Sanctus Ardoinas relates Avicenna hath prescribed nothing worth speaking of but what he had from others for I understand not what he means by his Aumeli But what if I a youth and an English man after so many grave and experienced Physicians should asseâ—t this for a certain Antidote viz. to take nothing down but the Bees themselves The likelyhood of the conjecture doth perswade and reason it self doth somewhat seem to favour it For unless that Dame Nature had given to these Bees a very marvellous power against poysoned honey as amongst men to the Psilli against Serpents to Storks and Peacocks amongst the Birds without all doubt with gathering of it swallowing of it and for some time keeping of it in their bodies yea concocting of it there they would be grievously pained and the poyson running and dispersing it self through all the parts would kill them Now the Terrestrial honey although it be not alwaies poysonous yet by reason of the blackness and clamminess of it 't is not much to be commended also it is often found to be subject to be infected by the venomous breath of Serpents Toads red Toads and therefore is carefully to be avoided Now let us come to the Qualities of Honey whereof some are first or primary others derived from them some formal some specifical which we deservedly call Energetical or operative In respect of the first Crasis or temper Honey is thought to be hot and dry in the second degree for which cause Galen did forbid those that are in Hectick Feavers and in all Feavers young men or those that have the yellow Jaundies to use it whereas in cold distempers he doth very much commend it and did prescribe it to those that were troubled with a raw and watry stomach whom if you gently anoint therewith it doth very much nourish and causeth a good colour and constitution of body If you desire to know the second qualities of honey viz. the smelling tasting visible tactile the best honey ought not to have the eminent quality of any herb or other thing whatsoever and therefore the honey that doth strongly smell of
time they are very irksome indeed Next to these is another Fly shrewdly annoying cattel in the heat of the day which Pennius cals Curvicaudam very well in English a Wringle-tail in regard that alwaies sitting upon the buttocks or belly of the beast he bends his tail towards him with his sting started that he may be ready to strike at-pleasure whensoever opportunity may ofter it self This Fly the English in their proper tongue call a Whame and a Burrell-fly and it is scarce found any where else but in England This kinde of Fly is almost like the Bee in shape and colour only it is bigger in body It doth not cleave to the flesh nor suck bloud as others do but only stings with its tail flying a long way after horses and stinging them in their travel Horses are naturally afraid of this Fly whom upon the least touch they endevour by what means possible with their tails feet and mouths to drive away Some are of a minde that these flies do not indeed use a sting or prick but with their tails they fasten their dung to the horses hair from whence a while after come a number of very irksome Nits But experience must prove that for reason in a matter so improbable is silent True it is they are very violent upon their prey as being blinde both the Tabanus and the Wringle-tail which may be the reason why they are so bold and fearlesse as being secure of any danger But especially the Oestrus from whence those famous Poets of old weâ—e said to be Oestro perciti stung with this furious Fly called Oestrum Plutarch cals them 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Gad-stricken Those kinde of Flies that follow are more rare There are â—undry sorts of Flies of the Greeks called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in Latine Pilicauda Seticaâ—dae in English Hair-tails or Bristle-tails For some of them have one others two othersome yet three or four bristles in their tail of which in order The Fly with four hairs represents the first of those with three hairs only its tail is somewhat bigger at the latter end of it the feet as also the horns black the wings long the outermost three times exceeding the innermost in bignesse having a black spot in the middle and in the tail four hairs or bristles The greatest Libellae The Mean The Smallest The middle sort of the Libellae do set forth Natures elegancy beyond the expression of Art The first is of a most cutious colour The body blue or sky colour the wings of bright violet colour the space between the shoulders is adorned with four golden gems set as it were in a blackish collet The second hath the head and body gray the wings whitish which are beautified with gray lines drawn quite through them in the middle they are of a purple colour The third hath its head and body of a greenish colour the lines of the wings are marked as it were with bloud colour streaks towards the edges or outmost parts like to a dark purple The fourth-seems to be all over of the same colour to wit of a duskish colour mixt with a pale green The eyes of the fifth are blue the head green the whole body mixt of green and blue except the wings which are most accurately wrought with silver colour and black in the 〈…〉 adowed with a dark purple The sixth is all over green yea and the wings themselves are of light green I have seen four of the least 〈◊〉 of the 〈◊〉 The first the body all over of a bright blue colour The second red the 〈…〉 to both of them a silver colour The third yellowish but the tail more thick the edges of the wings as also all the lines that run along them are red and marked with a bloud colour spot The fourth which is the least of all hath a long spiny tail a great head blue eyes standing out with two little horns to guard them the body somewhat long slender underneath greenish above blackish on the back it hath two greenish lines or streaks drawn along from the head to the 〈◊〉 of the wings the tail bound together with five joynts or knots in the end whereof is a ring of bluish colour One there is of this number which â—â—alleth some of the other bigger very speedily of a thin gray coloured body and the wings alike coloured and when he creeps into an apple no hole can be seen where he went in he feeds also upon seeds This Fly William Brewer a learned man and an excellent naturalist sent to Pennius There are found in the leaves of young Fennel Flies of an exceeding smalnesse inasmuch as sometimes they are so little that they are not able to be seen they run and fly very swiftly insomuch that you would wonder how it were possible for nature to fasten feet and wings to such very exceeding small bodies Water Flies of the Greeks called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Lâ—custres â—s abiding in fenny places are those that feed upon things that swim upon the suâ—â—ce of the water and that live especially upon the water as these and the like Phryganides 〈◊〉 Tigurina Aeschna Lutea Fâ—sca c. Phryganides comes from the little worm Phryga 〈…〉 which in English is called Cados worm living in the waters and in the midst of August ascending to the top or superficies of the waters it hath four wings of a brown colour the body somewhat long having two short horns the tail forked or rather bristles coming out of the tail The form or figure of this Fly is various in regard of the great variety of those little Cados worms whereof they come CHAP. XII Of the use of Flyes THese little creatures so hateful to all men are not yet to be contemned as being created of Almighty God for diverse and sundry uses First of all by these we are forewarned of the near approaches of foul weather and storms secondly they yeeld medicines for us when we are sick and are food for divers other creatures as well Birds as Fishes They shew and set forth the Omnipotency of God and execute his justice they improve the diligence and providential wisdome of men All which shall appear in their places As for their presaging of weather when the Flies bite hardel then ordinary making at the face and eyes of men they foretell rain or wet weather from whence Politian hath it Sitiensque cruoris Musca redit summosque proboscide mordicat artus English Thirsty for bloud the Fly returns And with his sting the skin he burns Perhaps before rain they are most hungry and therefore to asswage their hunger do more diligently seek after their food This also is to be observed that a little before a showre or a storm comes the Flies descend from the upper region of the air to the lowest and do fly as it were on the very surface of the earth Moreover if you see them very busie about sweet meats or
and lanthorn all this kindes Darkness cannot conceal her round about Her candle shines no winds can blow it out Sometimes she flies as though she did desire Those that pass by to observe her fire Which being nearer seem to be as great As sparks that fly when Smiths hot iron beat When Pluto ravish'd Proserpine that Rape For she was waiting on her chang'd her shape And since that time she flyeth in the night Seeking her out with torch and candle light Those that are without as well as they that have wings do send forth such a bright light that by it you may read a great print In this also they surpass Moon and Stars for that clouds and darkness soon eclipse their light where it is so far from obscuring the lustre of those that it rather increaseth it Thus far of those Glow-worms which are found in Europe In the Commentaries of Navigation this Glow-worm is thus described The Cocuio is four times as big as our flying Glow-worm it is of the kinde of Beetles the eyes whereof shine like a candle with whose brightness the air is so enlightned that any man may in his chamber read write or do any necessary business Many of them joyned together make such a light that an army may march by them whither they please maâ—gre all winds darkness rain or storms whatsoever Their wings being lift up and also towards their shanks they shine very gloriously the Inhabitants before the Spaniards came thither made use of no other light neither within nor without their houses But the Spaniards because these lightsome creatures do by little and little lose their light with their lives do use within doors about their businesse lamps and candles But if they are to march forth against an enemy newly arrived they make use of them to conduct them and each souldier carrying four of them about him divers waies cousen the enemy For when as that noble traveller Sir Tho. Cavendish that compassed the world and Robert Dudley Knight son to Robert Earl of Leicester first landed in the Indies and that very night that they came ashore saw hard by in the woods an infinite number of moving candles and torches as it were beyond their expectation they thinking the Spaniards were come upon them unawares with guns and pistols and much light speedily betook them to their ships Many other Insects of this kinde are there to be found But because this seemeth to be of most account and to have the preheminence above the rest Oviedus hath left the rest undescribed The Indians use to rub their faces with a paste made of them that so their bodies may seem all of a flame How this may be since as is said before the light vanisheth with the life I do not see unless it be that the light may endure a while after they are dead but that long it cannot remain is manifest by experience The Indians finding so great need of them in that they could not rest in the night for the Gnats stinging them the which these Glow-worms being kept in the house did as greedily hunt after as Swallowes do Flies and because they could not work by night without this lanthorn of nature before such time as the Spaniards came thither they bethought themselves 〈◊〉 some means whereby to catch them the which I shall shew partly out of Peter Martyr partly from those reports of others which were eye-witnesses of the same Whereas the Indians were constrained by reason of want of light to lie all the night idle they got them out of doors with a lighted firebrand and crying aloud Cucuie cucuie they do so beat the air that either for love of the light they fly to them or for fear of the cold they fall to the ground which some with leaves of trees others with linnen rags othersome with little nets made for the purpose detain till they can come to take them with their hands There are other little flying beasts which shine by night but a great deal bigger than ours and sending forth a far greater light For they shine so bright that those which take long journeys make them fast by a way to their heads and feet being alive for so they may be seen afar off to the astonishment of those that know not the matter the women use no other light to do their business withall by night within doors but these Oviedus There are yet other worms of another form which give light by night as we read in the Commentaries of Navigation In the Island called Hispaniola there are two sorts of worms which shine by night Some of the length of a mans little finger slender with many feet gliâ—â—ening so bright in the dark that a man may see all round about him â—or fifty or an hundred paces easily That clear light shines forth only out of the clifts 〈…〉 f you will the junctures of the body near the feet There are others like to these in bigness and altogether as lightsome but only that their light issues from the head Those things we finde in the histories of Navigation But whether these Cicindelae be of the kinde of of the Juli as I think them to be or whether they be like to ours is not declared But I guesse them so to be by the multitude of the feet they have for the Author reckons them in the number of the Scolopenders Valerius Cordus in Dioscor makes mention of the Scolopender as he interptets it whereas it is indeed a kinde of the Juli which in moist places and in rainy weather shine very bright Such a one my friend Brewer found in England in the heath grounds and sent the worm dryed to Pennius But that every man may better understand it I shal set down his own words I twice found a Scolopendra that shines in the night yet as I said they are kindes of Juli in summer nights of a shining â—ery appearance inheath and mossie grounds The whole body shines something more darkly than a glow-worm He further adds It once hapned that I came sweating home to my house at night that I wiped my head in the dark with a napkin the napkin seemed to me all over of a flaming fire whereupon I wondred a while at this new miracle all the lustre seemed to draw to one place then folding the napkin together I called for a candle and opening the cloth I found such a Scolopendra which I had rubbed against my head and had caused this strange light like fire Thus far Bruerus who affirms that it was like to the Scolopenders commonly so called in gardens and under stones and earthen vessels wherein women are wont to set their choicer plants or slips All the Summer time and Autumn saith Gaudentius Merula lib. 3. memor c. 61. In grassie ditches and without water when I was at Lebetium which is now called Jamzâ—rius fort I gathered little shining hairy worms in the night The same I saw in the ditches
they cannot live nor will they breed there as in the Territory Tefethor of Sigelunum Contrarily the City Hea by the sea-side unlesse John Leo deceives us is most fruitfull for Fleas by reason of the abundance of Goats as also Dede In Hispaniola Fleas are found but neither many nor great ones but they bite more fiercely by farre than ours doe they love hot places where the Sun shines In the Spring they multiply at the beginning of Winter they die for they cannot endure the cold They copulate the male ascending upon the female as Flies doe and they both goe leap and rest together They stick long together and are hardly pulled asunder After copulation presently almost the female full of Egges seems fatter which though in her belly they seem long very small very many and white yet when they are layd they turn presently black and turn into littles Fleas if we may grant what Pennius saith that bite most cruelly Philoponus in lib. de generat maintains that Fleas breed not Egges but Nits and Niphus saith the same But they endeavouring to prove this because they crack when they are crusht doth not confirm their opinion for Egges will not break under the nail without cracking Aristotle thinks that from them be they Egges Nits or little Worms no other Creature breeds and I should willingly subscribe to him but that I think Nature made nothing in vain Those Fleas seem to be more rare that India produceth neer the River Nigua as we learn from Thevet They chiefly seize upon the softest parts of the feet under the nails and bite venomously After four dayes they raise a swelling as great as a pease or a Chich pease and young ones like to white Nits and if all these be not forthwith picked out and the place affected burned with hot ashes the part will be lost as it falls out often with the Slaves in Numidia He also in the Province of Peru was subject to this mischief and could not recover but by washing himself in the River very often Cardan writes of a little Flea The West-Indies saith he brings forth a kinde of Flea called Nigua a very shrewd plague This creature is far lesse then a Flea that sticking to a man will so torture him that some lose their hands others their feet The remedy is to anoynt the part with Oyl and shave it with a Rasor To whom Scaliger answers thus Thy story of Nigua is lame yet not unprofitable if you consider Philologie I shall adde what you have omitted This little Flea hath a most sharp nib and invades chiefly the feet seldome other parts not only when men goe but lye down also Therefore the Indians lie high Most frequently they bite that part which is under the nails The fourth day the swelling begins to increase and grows to the bignesse of a great pease This swelling is full of young Nits they pick out these and lay on hot ashes Benzo seems to say the same The Indians are mightily troubled with venomous Insects Amongst the rest the Niguae about the bignesse of a Flea insensibly creep in between the flesh and the nails especially and they are bred in the dust It falls out ost times that no pain is felt by them till they grow as great as Chich peasen or Lentils and then with a wonderfull plenty of Nits bred they are hardly pickt out with a needle or thorn and this mischief is cured with hot ashes Moreover the slaves of Africa that the Spaniards have in their families because they go barefoot are shrewdly troubled with this plague and they breed such numbers in their feet that there is no remedy for them but the iron instrument of the fire whence many of them want their toes or their feet Fleas will dye from extreme cold and therefore in the colder winter they are not to be seen or else we kill them when we can catch them And one dog will as willingly bite out the Fleas of another dog as they will scratch one the other Also most bountiful Nature hath supplied us with a large field of remedies that the Fleas that hide themselves and leap away from us may be destroyed by us and we preserved from them For we have herbs Dwarf Elder-leaves Fern-root or Anchusa flowers of Penniroyal Rue Coloquintida Brambles Oleander Mints Horse-mints Hops Rape-seed Cumin Staves-acre Fleabane Conyta Saffron Coriander Celendine sweet Cods wilde Cicers Arsemart Mustard Lupins roots of Chamaelea Hellebore leaves of black Poplar-tree Bayes Walnut-tree with the oyls of these or the boyl'd decoctions if the pavement be sprinkled or the house be perfumed the Fleas will be gone and most of them are killed Above all the dregs of Mares-pisse or sea-water are commended if they be sprinkled up and down also Harts-horn burnt is very good Goats bloud set in a bason or a pit drawes all the Fleas to it as also a staffe anointed with the fat of a Hedgehog or Cony Ape Bear Bull or Fox will do the like The water of the decoction of Arsenick or Sublimate sprinkled is a certain experiment to destroy them Quicklime mingled with the juice of white Hellebore doth the same A Gloeworm set in the middle of the house drives away Fleas Fleawort in the City of Clâ—tire is powdred and the powder is strew'd about the beds which by its smell doth astonish the Fleas that they will not bite If a Flea get into ones ear pour in Oyl mingled with a little Vinegar or juice of Rue oyl of Spike Turpentine or oyl of Peter is very useful These remedies may serve the turn which are taken from Apsyrtus Varro Columella Galen Aetius Palladius Avicenna Rhasis Kiramides Guilielmus Placentinus Joanicius Bellunensis Hermotaus Barbarus and Pliny The Barbarians saith Leneus that the Fleas may not bite them anoint themselves with oyl that is thick and red pressed out of fruit which they call Courog Petrus Gallisardus Caelius Chalcagninus and Tzetzes are reported to have written the commendation of a Flea it was my desire to have seen this but it was never my chance CHAP. XXIX Of Insects that want feet and first of Earth-worms SOme earthly Insects that have no feet are bred in the earth some in living creatures some in plants Earth-worms by Plautus and Columella are called Lumbrici may be from their lubricity Also they are called the entrails of the earth both because they are bred in the bowels of the earth and because being pressed like the entrails of living creatures they cast forth excrements also because they are like them in form and fashion The Greeks call these 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Hesichius and the Syracusians 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the English Meds Earth-worms the French Vers de Terre the Italians Lumbrichi the Spaniards Lombriz the Germans and those of Flanders Erdwurmen the Arabians Charatits Manardus writes l. 2. ep 4. that Earth-worms were called Ovisculi Earth-worms are greater or lesser The great ones
nor increaseth for Dormice sleep all the Winter and eat nothing The life of it doth resemble that sleep which is partly waking wherein men are not properly awake nor yet asleep but are alive and move a little But I conjecture that the Philosopher wrote this that he might confirm that Axiome of his to credulous posterity that all Insects either lay egges or little Worms His words are these Insects first breed Worms but that which is called Chrysallis is an Egge and afterwards from this is bred a living Creature that at the third changing hath the end of its generation Yet it is manifest enough by what I said before that an Aurelia is no Egge and it ought not to be called a generation but a transmutation of a Caterpillar into this and of this into a Butterflie I say this for that purpose that such as adore Aristotle for a God may remember that he was but a man and that he was subject to humane errors There are two kindes of Aurelias that I have seen some are downy and others smooth both are of divers colours and sometimes they are Gold coloured which are the true Chrysallides and others that are but bastard ones are without any colour of Gold They have their Original from the death of the Catterpillars which as they do waste by degrees in certain dayes so by degrees their covering grows continually more hard and changeth into an Aurelia These again the next Spring or Autumn by degrees losing their life a Butterflie comes forth of them that is bred by the like metamorphosis What use they serve for for the good of man kinde I am wholly ignorant of I know well enough how much they perplexed Aristotles wit by their wonderfull transmutation and they set forth to us the boundlesse power of Almighty God George Agricola only propounds to us the Teredo without feet which from the brasen colour of it he call Kupter-worm It creeps like a Serpent saith he because it wants wings and feet It is as thick as a small Goose quill and it is as long as a Scolopendra It is round and breeds under rotten wood and sometimes found hard by the Scolopendra or long Ear-wig You may easily finde the figure of it placed amongst the Scolopendrae CHAP. XXXVII Of Water Insects without feet and first of the Shrimp or Squilla WEE said before that all water Insects were with feet or without feet Some of those that have feet swim with six feet as the Lobster the Shrimp the lake Scorpion the Evet and the Sea-lowse others with four feet some with more We shal treat of them severally The Squilla an Insect differs but little from the fish Squilla but that it hath the sail-yards much shorter and a more red colour or rather a more earthly colour Some of these are covered with a thin shell and some again are smooth and naked Those with shells live chiefly in small Brooks and stick to the roots of Reeds or water-flags They are of a yellowish colour and sometimes of a white or Ash-colour They go only with six feet the rest that are joyned to them serve in stead of fins The naked ones are either soft or hard The soft ones are represented well e 〈…〉 ough by this figure only suppose their heads to be of a bright Bay colour and their body died with a dark Ash-colour All those that are covered with a hard crust are made with joynts but some have round joynts others other fashions The form of the round joynted is exactly represented here if you suppose him to be easily dyed with a lighter red And such is the colour of the first and second that are not round joynted The third kinde is black upon the back and with a brown belly but they are all with a forked mouth and that will hold fast what is applyed to it The fourth kinde moves it self with the three former feet and useth the rest that hang by in stead of Oares The neck of it and the sailyards and the nippers are of a watry red colour the body is brownish or more Ash coloured The fifth hath a very black head and the body like to a Pomegranate shell The sixth seems to be cruel and in the same form you see it of an Ash-colour All of them have 〈…〉 ard eyes and black covered over with a membrane shining like unto glasse which move continually almost like to the ears of four-footed beasts They leap quickly one upon the other as the Fishes Squillae doe in coupling and when they grow bold and have liberty they fill the Females with young The time when they are ready for this is signified by a gentle biting The Female takes hold with her mouth and what she layes hold on she kills and gives part of it to her companion for they couple at the mouth as Crabs and Lobsters doe But what use they serve for in physick I cannot finde either in writers or from Empiricks who either knew not these Squillae or thought them not worthy to say any thing of them Yet this is certain that in April and May there is no better bait to catch Fish with CHAP. XXXVIII Of the Locust Scorpion Notonectum the Grashopper the Wasp the forked Claw the Newt the little Heart and the Lowse all Water-Insects THE Insect-Locust is like the Lobster for that cannot be called either flesh or fish you see the figure of it it is of a pale green colour I have seen three kindes of Lake Scorpions and I have them by me the first is somewhat black the other two are like to white sand we call some Insects of the water Notonâ—cta which do not swim upon their bellies as the rest do but upon their backs from whence it is probable that men learned the art of swimming upon their backs also Some of these have eyes shoulders and bodies all black some are green some are fiery coloured and some pitch coloured For you shall seldom see two of them of the same colour nature hath so variously sported her self in adorning them Water-Grashoppers hold the forâ—h described but their eyes are extreme black and their bodies are ash coloured The Wasp hath a brownish body all over except the black eyes The Forked Claw hath almost the same colour but it is more full it seems to want eyes but it hath them hid within whereby it both sees and perceives the object The Lizard is of divers colours and delights in catching Fish it is common about the British shores where it lyeth in wait to catch Fish The Corculus hath the just fashion of a heart the feet and head being taken away it hath very little black eyes and six legs of the same colour each with two clawes The Sea-Lowse is an Insect that is an enemy to all kinde of Whales which by biting and tickling it puts into such a rage that they are forced to run upon the sand and hasten to dry land I
conclude this discourse of a Cow in ancient time they were wont to call light women Heifers Harlots and Kine by reason of two famous harlots of Athens Cuina and Salanachha and from this came the fiction of Io whose fable is at large prosecuted by Ovid how she being the daughter of Iuachus was in a darkness brought upon her by jupiter by him ravished which mist being espied by Juno she descended to the earth and Jupiter fearing his wives jealousie turned the said Io into a Heifer from which shape she was afterwards delivered and maried to Osiris the King of Egypt and after her death was worshipped by the Egyptians for a god and called Isis unto whom they facrificed Geese which were called Sacra Isiaca In the choise of Kie you must observe this direction you must buy them in the moneth of March let them be young not past their first or second Calf their colour black or red seldom brown or white bright coloured specially red brown legs blackish horns smooth and beautiful high fore-heads great eyes and black hairy and grisly ears flat Nostrils like an Apes but open and wide their back bones bending somewhat backward black lips long and thick necks most broad fair crests descending from the neck well ribbed a great belly the back and shoulders very broad the buttockes broad with a long tail hanging down to their heels and their neather part in many places crisped and curled well set and compacted legs rough and short straight knees and their bunches hanging over their small feet not broad but round standing in good distance one from other not growing crooked or splay-footed and their hoofs smooth and like one another every way Finally it were a profitable thing to prosecute natures perfection in every one of their several parts but I spare to speak any more of the Females and returning again to the story of Oxen from which we have digressed leaving the readers who desire to hear more of this discourse of Kie to other Authors who purposely describe every part more particularly To begin therefore with their description because among folded beasts they are of most dignity and worth especially in Italy where the bounds of their best priviledged and flourishing Cities were first of all declared and layed out by the lowing together of an Ox and a Cow in one yoak Mago Carthaginensis teacheth that the time to provide or buy oxen is best in the time of March because then in their lean bodies they which sell them cannot cover their faults so well as if they were fatter and also if they should be unruly and stubborn they may be the more easily tamed before their flesh increase their strength Their notes or markes must be these let them be young having square and great lims a sound body thick and short having his muscles standing up red and round and all his body smooth his horns black strong and large without crooking or winding after the fashion of a half moon great and rough ears their eyes and lips black broad Nostrils and flat upward a long thick and soft neck his crest descending down to the knee a great breast large shoulders big belly long straight sides broad loins a straight back descending a little and a round pair of buttocks straight sound and sinewy short legs good knees great hoofs and long tails rough and grisly And it is to be noted that the Oxen of a mans own Countrey breed are better and to be preferred before strangers becanse he is already naturally fitted to the air food water and temper of the soil for it is not good to bring them from the Mountains to the Vallies because then they will grow lasie and fat and so into diseases neither from the Vallies to the Mountains because they will quickly grow out of heart through want of their first deep and fat pasture and above all have regard to match them equally in yoak so as one may not overbear the other Oxen loose their teeth at two or three year old but not all as a Horse doth their nerves are harder but not so hard as a Buls their flesh is dry and melancholick their horns are greater and larger then are a Buls for the same reason that Eunuchs and gelded persons can never be bald for copulation weakneth the brain only a Bull hath a stronger forehead then an Ox because the humour that should grow forth into horns is hardned under the bone and the horns of Kie which are also bigger then a Buls may through heat be made flexible with wax or water and bend every way and if when they are thus made soft you do slit or cut them into four that is every horn in two they will so grow afterward as if every beast had four horns and sometime through the thickness of their scull closing up the part where the horn should grow and the smalness of their veins in that place to feed the horns there come no horns at all but remain polled And it is reported that they have a little stone in their head which in the fear of death they breath out Their teeth do all touch one another and are changed twice they chew the cud like sheep wanting a row of their upper teeth that is four of them their eyes are black and broad and their heart full of sinews yet without any bony substance although Pliny affirmeth that sometimes in the hearts of Oxen and Horses are found bones Their crest called Palea cometh of Pilus their hair and it is nothing else but long strakes in their hair whereby the generofity and stomach of the beast is apparent A Cow hath two udders under her loins with four speans like a Goat and a Sheep because the concoction and juice of their meat may better descend to the lower parts then to the upper their navell is filled with many veins their hair short and soft their tail long with harder hair then in the other parts of the body their milt is long and not round their reins are like the reins of a Sea-calf and by reason of their dry bodies they grow very fat and this fat will not easily be dissolved but their manner of feeding maintaineth their strength for they which eat much are slow in the chewing and speedy in the concoction for they do better preserve their fat which eat slowly then those that eat hastily and with more greediness It hath been already shewed that some Oxen will eat flesh and tear wilde beasts in pieces the people of Prasias give to their yoaked or working Oxen fish and also in the Province of Aden and where their Horses Sheep and Oxen eat dryed fish by reason that the abundance of heat doth dry up their pasture neither is any thing so plentiful among them as fish the like is reported of the people Horotae and Gedrusu and of Moâ—ynum a City of Thracia and in Friseland