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.

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$Sea-mew. Tempest, ii. 2, 176. [Sea-mew, a small gull.] In the Lake of Como, certain fishers in the winter did draw with their nets to the dry land a great sort of Sea- mews, seeming to be dead, which were joined together with their bills or nebs in one another's tail ; and being warmed with their guts, were found alive. Lupto7i, Notable Things, bk. vi. § 88. Sedge. Taming of the Shrew, Induction, 2, 53. Sedge is an herb most hard and sharp, and hurteth never man but he toucheth it. Bartholomew {Berth/ct), bk. xvii. § 35. Sedges or sheargrass, whereof is made mats and hassocks to sit and kneel upon ; with the said Sedges is made Ham- boroughs [j.e.y collars] for the necks of horses, instead of leather harness, and for other cartage and plough. Bat7nail's addition to Bartholo?nczv, lor. cit. Serpent. All kind of Serpents and adders, that by kind may wrap and fold his own body, hath many corners and angles in such folding, and goeth never straight. And of adders is many manner kind ; and how many kind, so many manner venom, and how many species, so many manner malice, and so many manner sores and aches, as there are colours. And an adder grieveth most now with biting, now with blowing, now with smiting with the tail, and now with stinging, now with looking and sight. The Serpent Dipsas is so little, that he uneath [scarcely] is seen when men tread thereon, and the venom thereof slayeth ere it be felt, and he that dieth by that venom feeleth no sore. Some have two heads, as the adder Amphish^na, one in the one end, and another in the tother end, and runneth and glideth and wriggleth with wrinkles, circles and draughts of the body after either head, as though one mouth were$