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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    came, and seeing his female so gripped by the Viper, he ceased not to peck upon his head until the brains came out, and so the Viper fell down dead. The scorpions and the Vipers are enemies one to another. The tortoise of the earth is also an enemy to the Viper, and the Viper to it, wherefore if it can get origan, or wild savory, or rue, it eateth thereof, and then is nothing afraid to fight with the Viper, but if the tortoise can find none of these, then they die incontinently by the poison of the Viper, and of this there hath been trial. Garlic is poison to the Viper, and therefore having tasted thereof she dieth, except she eat some rue. A Viper being struck with a reed once, it amazeth her, and maketh her senseless, but being struck the second time, she recovereth and runneth away ; and the like is reported of the beech-tree, saving that it slayeth the Viper, and she is not able to go from it. If you lay fire on the one side, and a piece of yew on the other side, and then place a Viper in the middle betwixt them both, she will rather choose to run through the fire, than to go over the branches of yew. The Viper is also afraid of mustard-seed, for, it being laid in her path, she flieth from it, and, if she taste of it, she dieth. If the hands or the body of a man be anointed with the juice of the root of Arum, the Viper will never bite him ; the like is reported of the juice of Dragons, expressed out of the leaves, fruit, or root. Also if a Viper do behold a good smaragd [emerald], her eyes will melt and fall out of her head. But the Viper is most delighted with vetches and the savine-tree. When the male misseth the female, he seeketh her out very diligently, and with a pleasing and flattering noise calleth for her, and when he perceiveth she ap- proacheth, he casteth up all his venom, as it were in rever- ence of matrimonial dignity. In Egypt they eat Vipers and divers other serpents, with no more difficulty than they would do eels, so do many people both in the Eastern and Western parts of the New-found-lands. Whose diet of eating Vipers I do much pity, if the want of other food constrain them thereunto ; but if it arise from the insatiable and greedy intemperancy of their own appetites, I judge them eager of dainties, which adventure for it at such a market of poison. A mountain - viper chased a man so hardly that he was forcea to take a tree, unto the which