shape, and subsisting by sucking their claws--but he also affords us
much information about bears, which we do not find in modern Natural
Histories:--“At what time they come abroad, being in the beginning of
May, which is the third moneth from the Spring. The old ones being
almost dazled with long darknes, comming into light againe, seeme to
stagger and reele too and fro, and then for the straightnesse of their
guts, by reason of their long fasting, doe eat the herbe _Arum_, called
in English _Wake-Robbin_, or _Calves-foot_, being of very sharpe and
tart taste, which enlargeth their guts, and so, being recovered, they
remaine all the time their young are with them, more fierce, and cruell
than at other times. And concerning the same _Arum_, called also
_Dracunculus_, and _Oryx_, there is a pleasant vulgar tale, whereby some
have conceived that Beares eat this herbe before their lying secret, and
by vertue thereof (without meat, or sence of cold) they passe away the
whole winter in sleepe.
“There was a certaine cow-heard, in the Mountains of _Helvetia_, which,
comming downe a hill, with a great caldron on his backe, he saw a beare
eating a root which he had pulled up with his feet; the cowheard stood
still till the beare was gone, and afterward came to the place where the
beast had eaten the same, and, finding more of the same roote, did
likewise eat it; he had no sooner tasted thereof, but he had such a
desire to sleepe, that hee could not containe himselfe, but he must
needs lie down in the way, and there fell a sleep, having covered his
heade with the caldron, to keep himself from the vehemency of the colde,
and there slept all the Winter time without harme, and never rose againe
till the spring time; which fable if a man will beleeve, then,
doubtlesse, this hearbe may cause the Beares to be sleepers, not for
fourteene dayes, but for fourscore dayes together.
“The ordinary food of Beares is fish; for the Water beare, and others
will eate fruites, Apples, Grapes, Leaves, and Pease, and will breake
into bee hives sucking out the honey; likewise Bees, Snayles and Emmets,
and flesh, if it bee leane, or ready to putrifie; but, if a Beare doe
chance to kill a swine, or a Bull, or Sheepe, he eateth them presentlie,
whereas other beasts eate not hearbes, if they eate flesh: likewise they
drinke water, but not like other beastes, neither sucking it, or lapping
it, but as it were, even bitinge at it.
“They are exceeding full of fat or Larde-greace, which some use
superstitiouslie beaten with oile, wherewith they anoint their
grape-sickles when they go to vintage, perswading themselves that if no
bodie knows thereof, their tender vine braunches shall never be consumed
by catterpillers.
“Others attribute this to the vertue of Beare’s blood, and
_Theophrastus_ affirmeth, that if beare’s grease be kept in a vessell,
at such time as the beares lie secret, it will either fill it up, or
cause it to runne over. The flesh of beares is unfit for meate, yet some
use to eate it, after it hath been twice sodden; other eat it baked in
pasties, but the truth is, it is better for medicine than food.
_Theophrastus_ likewise affirmeth, that at the time when beares lie
secret, their dead flesh encreaseth, which is kept in houses, but
beare’s fore feet are held for a verie delicate and well tasted foode,
full of sweetnes, and much used by the German Princes.
“And because of the fiercenesse of this beast, they are seldome taken
alive, except they be very young, so that some are killed in the
Mountaines by Poyson, the Country being so steepe and rocky that hunters
cannot followe them; some taken in ditches of the earth and other
ginnes. _Oppianus_ relateth that neare _Tygris_ and _Armenia_, the
inhabitauntes use this Stratigem to take Beares.
“The people go often to the Wooddes to find the Denne of the Beare,
following a leam hound, whose nature is, so soone as he windeth the
beast, to barke, whereby his leader discovereth the prey, and so draweth
off the hounde with the leame; then come the people in great multitude,
and compasse him about with long nets, placing certaine men at each end:
then tie they a long rope to one side of the net, as high from the
ground, as the small of a Man’s belly; whereunto are fastned divers
plumes and feathers of vultures, swannes, and other resplendant coloured
birdes, which, with the wind make a noise or hissing, turning over and
glistering; on the other side of the net they build foure little hovels
of greene boughes, wherein they lay foure men covered all over with
greene leaves; then, all being prepared, they sound their Trumpets, and
wind their horns; at the noise whereof the beare ariseth, and in his
fearefull rage runneth too and fro as if he sawe fire: the young men,
armed, make unto him, the beare, looking round about, taketh the
plainest way toward the rope hung full of feathers, which, being
stirred, and haled by those that holde it, maketh the beare much affraid
with the ratling and hissing thereof, and so flying from that side halfe
mad, runneth into the nets, where the keepers entrap him so cunningly,
that he seldome escapeth.
“When a Beare is set upon by an armed man, he standeth upright, and
taketh the man betwixt his forefeet, but he, being covered all over with
yron plates can receive no harm, and then may easily, with a sharpe
knife or dagger pierce thorough the heart of the beast.
“If a shee beare having young ones be hunted, shee driveth her Whelpes
before her, untill they be wearied, and then, if she be not prevented,
she climbeth uppon a tree, carrying one of her young in her mouth, and
the other on her backe. A Beare will not willingly fight with a man,
but, being hurt by a man, he gnasheth his teeth, and licketh his
forefeete, and it is reported by an Ambassador of _Poland_, that when
the _Sarmatians_ finde a beare, they inclose the whole Wood by a
multitude of people standing not above a cubit one from another; then
cut they downe the outmost trees, so that they raise a Wall of wood to
hemme in the Beares; this being effected, they raise the Beare, having
certaine forkes in their hands, made for that purpose, and, when the
Beare approacheth, they, (with those forkes) fall upon him, one keeping
his head, another one leg, other his body, and so, with force, muzzle
him and tie his legges, leading him away. The Rhætians use this policy
to take Wolves and Beares; they raise up great posts, and crosse them
with a long beame laded with heavy weightes, unto the which beame they
fasten a corde with meat therein, whereunto the beast comming, and
biting at the meat, pulleth downe the beame upon her owne pate.
“The inhabitants of _Helvetia_ hunt them with mastiffe Dogges, because
they should not kill their cattell left at large in the fielde in the
day time; They likewise shoote them with gunnes, giving a good summe of
money to them that can bring them a slaine beare. The _Sarmatians_ use
to take Beares by this sleight; under those trees wherein bees breed,
they plant a great many of sharpe pointed stakes, putting one hard into
the hole wherein the bees go in and out, whereunto the Beare climbing,
and comming to pull it forth, to the end that she may come to the hony,
and being angry that the stake sticketh so fast in the hole, with
violence plucketh it foorth with both her fore feet, whereby she looseth
her holde, and falleth downe upon the picked stakes, whereupon she
dieth, if they that watch for her come not to take her off. There was
reported by _Demetrius_, Ambassador at _Rome_, from the King of _Musco_,
that a neighbor of his, going to seek hony, fell into a hollow tree, up
to the brest in hony, where he lay two days, being not heard by any man
to complain; at length came a great Beare to this hony, and, putting his
head into the tree, the poore man tooke hold thereof, whereat, the
Beare, suddenly affrighted, drew the man out of that deadly danger, and
so ranne away for feare of a worse creature.
“But, if there be no tree wherein Bees doe breed neere to the place
where the Beare abideth, then they use to annoint some hollow place of a
tree with hony, whereinto Bees will enter and make hony combes, and when
the Beare findeth them, she is killed as aforesaide. In _Norway_ they
use to saw the tree almost asunder, so that when the beast climbeth it,
she falleth downe upon piked stakes laid underneath to kill her; and
some make a hollow place in a tree, wherein they put a great pot of
water, having annointed it with hony, at the bottome wherof are fastened
certaine hookes bending downeward, leaving an easie passage for the
beare to thrust in her head to get the honie, but impossible to pull it
foorth againe alone, because the hookes take holde on her skinne; this
pot they binde fast to a tree, whereby the Beare is taken alive and
blinde folded, and though her strength breake the corde or chaine
wherewith the pot is fastened, yet can shee not escape or hurt any bodie
in the taking, by reason her head is fastened in the pot.
“To conclude, other make ditches or pits under Apple trees, laying upon
their mouth rotten stickes, which they cover with earth, and strawe
uppon it herbes, and when the beare commeth to the Apple tree, she
falleth into the pit and is taken.
“The herbe _Wolfebaine_ or _Liberdine_ is poison to Foxes, Wolves, Dogs,
and Beares, and to all beasts that are littered blind, as the _Alpine
Rhætians_ affirme. There is one kinde of this called _Cyclamine_, which
the _Valdensians_ call _Tora_, and with the juice thereof they poison
their darts, whereof I have credibly received this story; That a certain
_Valdensian_, seeing a wilde beare, having a dart poysond heerewith, did
cast it at the beare, being farre from him, and lightly wounded her, it
being no sooner done, but the beare ran to and fro in a wonderful
perplexitie through the woods, unto a verie sharpe cliffe of a rocke,
where the man saw her draw her last breath, as soon as the poison
entered to her hart, as he afterward found by opening of her bodie. The
like is reported of henbane, another herb. But there is a certaine
blacke fish in _Armenia_ full of poison, with the pouder whereof they
poison figs, and cast them in those places where wilde beastes are most
plentifull, which they eat, and so are killed.
“Concerning the industrie or naturall disposition of a beare, it is
certaine that they are very hardlie tamed, and not to be trusted though
they seeme never so tame; for which cause there is a storie of _Diana_
in _Lysias_, that there was a certaine beare made so tame, that it went
uppe and downe among men, and woulde feede with them, taking meat at
their handes, giving no occasion to feare or mistrust her cruelty; on a
daye, a young mayde playing with the Beare, lasciviously did so provoke
it, that he tore her in pieces; the Virgin’s brethren seeing the
murther, with their Dartes slew the Beare, whereupon followed a great
pestilence through all that region: and when they consulted with the
Oracle, the paynim God gave answeare, that the plague could not cease
untill they dedicated some virginnes unto _Diana_ for the Beare’s sake
that was slaine; which, some interpreting that they should sacrifice
them, _Embarus_, upon condition the priesthoode might remaine in his
family, slewe his onely daughter to end the pestilence, and for this
cause the virgins were after dedicated to _Diana_ before their marriage,
when they were betwixt ten and fifteene yeare olde, which was performed
in the moneth of _January_, otherwise they could not be married: yet
beares are tamed for labours, and especially for sports among the
_Roxalani_ and _Libians_, being taught to draw water with wheeles out of
the deepest wels; likewise stones upon sleds, to the building of wals.
“A prince of _Lituania_ nourished a Beare very tenderly, feeding her
from his table with his owne hand, for he had used her to be familiar in
his court, and to come into his owne chamber, when he listed, so that
she would goe abroad into the fields and woods, returning home againe of
her owne accord, and with her hand or foote rub the Kinge’s chamber
doore to have it opened, when she was hungry, it being locked. It
happened that certaine young Noble men conspired the death of this
Prince, and came to his chamber doore, rubbing it after the custome of
the beare, the King not doubting any evill, and supposing it had bene
his beare, opened the doore, and they presently slewe him....
“There are many naturall operations in Beares. _Pliny_ reporteth, that,
if a woman bee in sore travaile of child-birth, let a stone, or arrow,
which hath killed a man, a beare, or a bore, be throwne over the house
wherein the Woman is, and she shall be eased of her paine. There is a
small worme called _Volvox_, which eateth the vine branches when they
are young, but if the vine-sickles be annointed with Beare’s blood, that
worme will never hurt them. If the blood or greace of a Beare be set
under a bed, it will draw unto it all the fleas, and so kill them by
cleaving thereunto. But the vertues medicinall are very many; and first
of all, the blood cureth all manner of bunches and apostems in the
flesh, and bringeth haire upon the eyelids if the bare place be
annointed therewith.
“The fat of a Lyon is most hot and dry, and next to a Lyon’s a
Leopard’s; next to a Leopard’s a Beare’s; and next to a Beare’s, a
Bul’s. The later Physitians use it to cure convulsed and distracted
parts, spots, and tumors in the body. It also helpeth the paine of the
loins, if the sicke part be annointed therewith, and all ulcers in the
legges or shinnes, when a plaister is made thereof with bole armoricke.
Also the ulcers of the feet, mingled with allome. It is soveraigne
against the falling of the haire, compounded with wilde roses. The
Spaniards burne the braines of beares, when they die in any publicke
sports, holding them venemous; because, being drunke, they drive a man
to be as mad as a beare; and the like is reported of the heart of a
Lyon, and the braine of a Cat. The right eie of a beare dried to pouder,
and hung about children’s neckes in a little bag, driveth away the
terrour of dreames, and both the eyes whole, bound to a man’s left arme,
easeth a quartan ague.
“The liver of a sow, a lamb, and a bear put togither, and trod to pouder
under one’s shoos, easeth and defendeth cripples from inflamation: the
gall being preserved and warmed in water, delivereth the bodie from
Colde, when all other medicine faileth. Some give it, mixt with Water,
to them that are bitten with a mad Dogge, holding it for a singular
remedie, if the party can fast three daies before. It is also given
against the palsie, the king’s evill, the falling sickenesse, an old
cough, the inflamation of the eies, the running of the eares, delevery
in child birth, the Hæmorrhods, the weaknes of the backe, and the
palsie: and that women may go their full time, they make ammulets of
Bear’s nails, and cause them to weare them all the time they are with
Child.”
THE FOX.
By Englishmen, the Fox has been raised to the height of at least a
demigod--and his cult is a serious matter attended with great minutiæ of
ritual. Englishmen and Foxes cannot live together, but they live for one
another, the man to hunt the fox, the fox to be hunted. If there be a
fox anywhere, even in the Campagna at Rome, and there are sufficient
Englishmen to get up a scratch pack of hounds, there must “bold Reynard”
be tortured with fear and exertion, only, in all probability, to die a
cruel death in the end. In the Peninsular War, a pack of foxhounds
accompanied the army; in India, failing foxes, they take the nearest
substitute, the jackal; and in Australia, _faute de mieux_, they hunt
the Dingo, or native dog. No properly constituted Englishman could ever
compass the death of a poor fox, otherwise than by hunting. The
Vulpecide--in any other manner--is, in an English county, a social
leper--he is a thing _anathema_. Running away with a neighbour’s wife
may be condoned by county society, at least, among the men, but with
them the man that shoots foxes is a very pariah, and it were good for
that man had he never been born.
Every other nation, even from historic antiquity, has reckoned the Fox
as among the ordinary _feræ naturæ_, to be killed, when met with, for
the sake only of his skin, for his flesh is not toothsome: and when he
arrives at the dignity of a silver or a black fox, his fur enwraps royal
personages, as being of extreme value.
The Fox is noted everywhere for its “_craftiness_,” and was so famed
long before the epic of Reineke Fuchs was evolved, and, indeed, this may
be said to be its principal attribute. Many are the stories told by
country firesides of his stratagems, both in plundering and in his
endeavours to escape from his enemies. Indeed, no country ought to be
able to compare in Fox lore with our own. Its sagacity, cunning, or call
it what you like, dates far back. Pliny tells us that “in Thrace, when
all parts are covered with ice, the foxes are consulted, an animal,
which, in other respects, is baneful from its Craftiness. It has been
observed, that this animal applies its ear to the ice, for the purpose
of testing its thickness; hence it is, that the inhabitants will never
cross frozen rivers and lakes, until the foxes have passed over them and
returned.”
The Fox is most abundant in the northern parts of Europe, and therefore
we hear more about him from the pages of Olaus Magnus, Gessner, and
Topsell.
[Illustration]
The former says:--“When the fox is pressed with hunger, Cold and Snow,
and he comes near men’s houses, he will bark like a dog, that house
creatures may come nearer to him with more confidence. Also, he will
faign himself dead, and lie on his back, drawing in his breath, and
lolling out his tongue. The birds coming down, unawares, to feed on the
carkasse, are snapt up by him, with open mouth. Moreover, when he is
hungry, and finds nothing to eat, he rolls himself in red earth, that he
may appear bloody; and, casting himself on the earth, he holds his
breath, and when the birds see that he breaths not, and that his tongue
hangs forth of his mouth, they think he is dead; but so soon as they
descend, he draws them to him and devours them.
“Again, when he sees that he cannot conquer the Urchin, for his
prickles, he lays him on his back, and so rends the soft part of his
body. Sometimes fearing the multitude of wasps, he counterfeits and
hides himself, his tail hanging out: and when he sees that they are all
busie, and entangled in his thick tail, he comes forth, and rubs them
against a stone or Tree, and kills them and eats them. The same trick,
almost, he useth, when he lyes in wait for crabs and small fish, running
about the bank, and he lets down his tail into the water, they admire at
it, and run to it, and are taken in his fur, and pull’d out. Moreover,
when he hath fleas, he makes a little bundle of soft hay wrapt in hair,
and holds it in his mouth; then he goes by degrees into the water,
beginning with his tail, that the fleas fearing the water, will run up
all his body till they come at his head: then he dips in his head, that
they may leap into the hay; when this is done, he leaves the hay in the
water, and swims forth.
“But when he is hungry, he will counterfeit to play with the Hare, which
he presently catcheth and devoureth, unlesse the Hare escape by flight,
as he often doth. Sometimes he also escapes from the dogs by barking,
faigning himself to be a dog, but more surely when he hangs by a bough,
and makes the dogs hunt in vain to find his footing. He is also wont to
deceive the Hunter and his dogs, when he runs among a herd of Goats, and
goes for one of them, leaping upon the Goat’s back, that he may sooner
escape by the running of the Goat, by reason of the hatefull Rider on
his back. The other Goats follow, which the Hunter fearing to molest,
calls off his Dogs that many be not killed.
“If he be taken in a string, he will sometime bite off his own foot, and
so get away. But, if there be no way open he will faign himself dead,
that being taken out of the snare, he may run away. Moreover, when a dog
runs after him, and overtakes him, and would bite him, he draws his
bristly tail through the dog’s mouth, and so he deludes the dog till he
can get into the lurking places of the Woods. I saw also in the Rocks of
_Norway_ a Fox with a huge tail, who brought many Crabs out of the
water, and then he ate them. And that is no rare sight, when as no fish
like Crabs will stick to a bristly thing let down into the water, and to
dry fish, laid on the rocks to dry. They that are troubled with the
Gowt, are cured by laying the warm skin of this beast about the part,
and binding it on. The fat, also, of the same creature, laid smeered
upon the ears or lims of a gowty person, heals him; his fat is good for
all torments of the guts, and for all pains, his brain often given to a
child will preserve it ever from the Falling-sicknesse. These and
such-like simple medicaments the North Country people observe.”
A portion of the above receives a curious corroboration from Mr. P.
Robinson in his book, _The Poets’ Beasts_. Speaking of the Lynx, he
says:--“But it is not, as is supposed, ‘untamable.’ The Gækwar of Baroda
has a regular pack of trained lynxes, for stalking and hunting pea-fowl,
and other kinds of birds. I have, myself, seen a tame lynx that had been
taught to catch crows--no simple feat--and its strategy was as diverting
as its agility amazing. It would lie down with the end of a string in
its mouth, the other end being fast to a stake, and pretend to be
asleep, dead asleep, drunk, chloroformed, anything you like that means
profound and gross slumber. A foot or so off would be lying a piece of
meat, or a bone.
“The crows would very soon discover the bone, and collecting round in a
circle, would discuss the probabilities of the lynx only shamming, and
the chances of stealing his dinner. The animal would take no notice
whatever, but lie there looking so limp and dead, that at last one crow
would make so bold as to come forward. The others let it do so alone,
knowing that afterwards there would be a free fight for the plunder, and
the thief, probably, not enjoy it, after all. So the delegate would
advance with all the caution of a crow--and nothing exceeds it--until
within seizing distance. There it would stop, flirt its wings nervously,
stoop, take a last long look at the lynx to make sure that it really
_was_ asleep, and then dart like lightning at the bone. But, if the crow
was as quick as lightning, the lynx was as swift as thought, and lo! the
next instant there was the beast sitting up with the bird in its
mouth!...
“Next time it had to practise a completely different manœuvre. The same
crows are not to be ‘humbugged’ a second time by a repetition of the
being-dead trick. So the lynx, when a sufficient number of the birds had
assembled, would take the string in its mouth, and run round and round
the stake, at the extreme limit of its tether, as if it were tied. The
crows, after their impudent fashion, would close in. They thought they
knew the exact circumference of the animal’s circle, and getting as
close to the dangerous line as possible, without actually transgressing
it, would mock and abuse the supposed betethered brute. But all of a
sudden, the circling lynx would fly out at a tangent, right into the
thick of his black tormentors, and, as a rule, bag a brace, right and
left.”
Topsell gives some curious particulars of the Fox, and, speaking of
their earths, he says:--“These dens have many caves in them, and
passages in and out, that when the Terrars shall set upon him in the
earth, he may go forth some other way, and forasmuch as the Wolfe is an
enemy to the Foxe, he layeth in the mouth of his den, an Herbe (called
Sea-onyon) which is so contrary to the nature of a Wolfe, and he so
greatly terrified therewith, that hee will never come neere the place
where it groweth, or lyeth; the same is affirmed of the Turtle to save
her young ones, but I have not read that Wolves will prey upon Turtles,
and therefore we reject that as a fable.... If a Foxe eat any meat
wherein are bitter Almondes, they die thereof, if they drinke not
presently: and the same thing do Aloes in their meate worke uppon them,
as _Scaliger_ affirmeth upon his owne sighte or knowledge. _Apocynon_ or
Bear-foot given to dogs, wolves, Foxes, and all other beasts which are
littered blind, in fat, or any other meat, killeth them, if vomit helpe
them not, which falleth out very seldome, and the seeds of this hearbe
have the same operation. It is reported by _Democritus_, that, if wilde
rue be secretly hunge under a Hen’s wing, no Fox will meddle with her,
and the same writer also declareth for approoved, that, if you mingle
the gal of a Fox, or a Cat, with their ordinary foode, they shall
remaine free from the danger of these beasts.