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
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

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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    thereto, and ween to find there a ram, and find a venomous Serpent when they have assayed. Also Boa is a Serpent full great in quantity, and is in Italy, and followeth flocks of neat and of bugles [buffaloes], and setteth himself guile- fully to the udders of the beasts that be full of milk, and sucketh and slayeth them. The head of a Serpent scapeth and liveth, if it may scape with two fingers of the body, and therefore they put forth all the body for defence of the head. Also all Serpents have dim sight, and look away- ward, and no wonder, for their eyes be not in the forehead but in the temples, so that they may rather hear than see. Also no beast moveth the tongue so swiftly as the Serpent, for it moveth the tongue so swiftly, that it seemeth that it hath three tongues, yet it hath but one. Also the bodies of serpents be moist, so that where they glide and go, they infect the way, and mark it with a manner glymy [viscous] humour. Also Serpents live long and without meat. And they live so long time, that they put away their old skins, and become young again. The manner of changing of Serpents' skins seemeth wonderful enough ; for the adder feeleth himself grieved with evil, or with age, and abstaineth