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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    to profit marvellously, if it be thrown unto them ; for they that shall eat of it, will be taken with your hand. If you will make Birds drunk that you may catch them with your hands, take such meat as they love, as wheat or beans, or such like, and lay the same to steep in lees of wine, or in the juice of hemlocks, and sprinkle the same in the place where the Birds use to haunt ; and if they do eat thereof, straightways they will be so giddy, that you may take them with your hands. I wrote this out of an old written book, wherein I know many true things were written. Luptotfs Notable Things, bk. viii. §§ + and 68. If you wish to understand the speech of Birds, take with you two friends on the fifth day of the Calends of November, and go into a grove with your dogs as if to hunt, and take the first beast you find home with you, and prepare it with the heart of a fox, and straightway you will understand the speech of Birds or beasts ; and if you desire that any one else should understand it,—-kiss him, and he will understand likewise, Albertus Magnus, Of the Wonders oF the World. Of such wild fowl as are bred in our land, we have the crane, the bittern, the wild and tame swan, the bustard, the heron, curlew, snite [snipe], wild-goose, wind or dotterel, brant [brant-goose or barnacle], lark, plover of both sorts, lapwing, teal, widgeon, mallard, sheldrake, shoveler, peewit, seamew, barnacle, quail (who only with man are subject to the falling sickness), the knot, the oliet or olife, the dunbird, woodcock, partridge and pheasant, besides divers other. As for egrets, pawpers and such like, they are daily brought to us from beyond the sea. Our tame fowl are common both to us and to other countries, as cocks, hens, geese, ducks, peacocks of Ind, pigeons. I would likewise entreat of other fowls which we repute unclean, as ravens, crows, pies, choughs, rooks, kites, jays, ring-tails, starlings, wood- spikes, woodgnaws, etc. Our other fowls are nightingales, thrushes, blackbirds, mavises, ruddocks, redstarts or dun- nocks, larks, tivits, kingfishers, buntings, (turtles, white or grey), linnets, bulfinches, goldfinches, wash-tails, cherry- crackers, yellowhammers, fieldfares, etc. Harrho7i^s Description of England, pp. 222-3, in Holinsbed.