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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    refraining of the barnacle, and dieth at last after vain travails, and hath no reward after his death for the service and travail that he had living, not so much that his own skin is left with him, but it is taken away, and the carrion is thrown out without sepulchre or burials—but it be so much of the carrion that by eating and devouring is some- time buried in the wombs of hounds and wolves. Bartholomew (Berthelet), bk. xviii. § 8. When an Ass dieth, out of his body are engendered cer- tain flies called Scarabees. Asses are subject to madness when they have tasted to certain herbs growing near Potnias. Some have used to put into gardens the skull of a mare or she-ass that hath been covered, with persuasion that the gardens will be the more fruitfiil. The wolf with small force doth compass the destruction of an Ass, for the blockish Ass, when he seeth a wolf, layeth his head on his side, that so he might not see, thinking that, because he seeth not the wolf, the wolf cannot see him. Topsell, Four-footed Beasts, pp. 19-21. If a stone be bound to the tail of an Ass, he will not bray nor roar. The skin of an Ass when it is hung over boys prevents them from being frightened. If you wish that a man's head should appear as an Ass's head, take of the parings of [the hoof of] an Ass, and rub the man's head with them. Albertus Magnus, Of the Wonders of the World.'' In Africa also are wild Asses, among which one male hath many females ; a jealous beast, who (for fear of after encroaching) bites off the stones of the young males, if the suspicious female prevent him not by bringing forth in a close place, where he shall not find it. Pi/rchds^ Pilgrims, p. 558 (ed. 1616). Baboon. V. Ape, Monkey. You and your coach-fellow Nym . . . had looked through the grate, like a geminy of baboons. Merry Wives of Windsor, ii. 2, 7-9. Cool it with a baboon's blood, Then the charm is firm and good, Macbeth, iv. i, 37-8.