Natural history in Shakespeare's time : being extracts illustrative of the subject as he knew it / Made by H. W. Seager, M. B., &c. Also pictures thereunto belonging.

Seager, H. W. (Herbert West), 1848-

Date:: 1896

Credit: Natural history in Shakespeare's time : being extracts illustrative of the subject as he knew it / Made by H. W. Seager, M. B., &c. Also pictures thereunto belonging. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University.

268/376 (page 256)

$if the left be bound, he gendereth males, and he gendereth males in the Northern wind, and females in the Southern wind. And such Rams as have black veins under their tongues, such lambs they gender in colour, and if they be white, the lambs are white, and if they be speckled, the lambs be so. The Ram hath a full hard forehead, nigh as horn, and feeble temples, and somewhat gristly. And when it rains, they flee not the rain until they be dead. And they dread kindly the thunder, as sheep do. And they sleep with the sheep tofore midnight, and after part, and change, and turn from side to side in sleeping ; for from springing-time to harvest, they sleep on the one side, and then unto springing-time they sleep on the other side ; and hold up their heads while they sleep, except they be sick; and they chew their cud sleeping, as they do waking. And if it happen that they stray and go away, they come not again, but if the herd bringeth them again. And their flesh is better than flesh of lambs and of ewes, Bartholomew {Berthekt), bk. xviii. § 3. A COMB made of the right horn of a Ram doth take away the head-ache being on the right side of the head, if the pained head be combed therewith. If the pain be on the left side of the head, then a comb made of the left horn of a Ram doth take it away. This I had out of an old book. Lupton, Notable Things, bk. iv. § 4. They were wont to hang a shrimp at the horn of the Ram, and then the wolf will never set upon their flocks. If the horns of a Ram be buried in the earth, they will turn into the herb spirage [.^ misprint for spinach, or for spurge] ; for rottenness and putrefaction is the mother of many creatures and herbs. Topiell, Four-footed Beasts, p. 493. V. Lamb, Sheep. Rat. The very rats Instinctively have quit it. Tempest, ii. i, 147. Their tail is counted venomous. The younger Rats bring food unto the elder, because they are grown to a great and unwieldy stature of body. With the dung of$