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
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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![Their gendering is in the beginning of winter, and gender not as other fourfooted beasts do, but they gender both lying, and then they depart asunder each from other, and go in dens either by themself, and whelpeth therein the XXX day, and the whelps be not more than five, and be white and evil shapen. For the whelp is a piece of flesh little more than a mouse, having neither eyes nor hair, and having claws somedeal bourging [i.e., burgeoning], and so this kmip she licketh, and shapeth a whelp with licking. And so men shall see no where beasts more selder gender nor whelp than Bears, and therefore the males hide them and lurk forty days, and the females array their houses four months with boughs, fruit and branches, and covereth it, for to keep out the rain with nesh twigs and branches. The first forty days of these days they sleep so fast, that they may not be awaked with wounds, and thac time they fast mightily. And the grease of a Bear helpeth against the falling of the hair. And after these days, she sitteth up and liveth by sucking of her feet, and beclippeth the cold whelps, and holdeth them fast to her breast : And heateth and comforteth them, and lieth grovelling upon them, as birds do. And it is wonder to tell a thing that Theophrastus saith and telleth, that Bear's flesh sod that time vanisheth if it be laid up, and is no token of meat found in the almery [cupboard, larder], but a little quantity of humour: and hath that time small drops of blood about the heart, and no manner of blood in the other deal of the body. And in springing time the males go forth and be fat, and the cause thereof is unknown, namely for that time they be not fatted with meat neither with sleep, but only seven days. And when she goeth out of her den, she seeketh an herb, and eateth it to make lax her womb, that is then hard and bound. Then her eyes be dimmed, and therefore namely they labour to get them honey-combs, for the mouth should be wounded with stinging of bees and bleed; and so relieve the heaviness and sore ache of their eyes. His head is full feeble, that is most strong in the lion, and therefore sometime he falleth down headlong upon the rocks, and falleth upon gravel and dieth soon. And as men say, the Bear's brain is venomous, and therefore when they be slain, their heads be burnt in open places, for men should not taste of the brain, and fall into woodness](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b2100433x_0042.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
