CENTURY IX. 1G6 



Experiment solitary touching Jksh edible, and not edible. 

 859. Of fleshes, some are edible ; some, except 

 it be in famine, not. For those that are not edible, 

 the cause is, for that they have commonly too much 

 bitterness of taste ; and therefore those creatures 

 which are fierce and choleric are not edible ; as lions, 

 wolves, squirrels, dogs, foxes, horses, &c. As for kine, 

 sheep, goats, deer, swine, conies, hares, c. we see they 

 are mild and fearful. Yet it is true, that horses, which 

 are beasts of courage, have been, and are eaten by 

 some nations ; as the Scythians were called Hippo- 

 phagi ; and the Chinese eat horse-flesh at this day ; 

 and some gluttons have used to have colts -flesh 

 baked. In birds, such as are carnivora?, and birds of 

 prey, are commonly no good meat, but the reason is, 

 rather the choleric nature of those birds, than their 

 feeding upon flesh : for pewets, gulls, shovellers, 

 ducks, do feed upon flesh, and yet are good meat. 

 And we see that those birds which are of prey, or 

 feed upon flesh, are good meat when they are very 

 young ; as hawks, rooks out of the nest, owls, &c. 

 Man s flesh is not eaten. The reasons are three : 

 first, because men in humanity do abhor it : secondly, 

 because no living creature that dieth of itself is good 

 to eat : and therefore the cannibals themselves eat 

 no man s flesh of those that die of themselves, but of 

 such as are slain. The third is, because there must 

 be generally some disparity between the nourish-- 

 ment and the body nourished ; and they must not be 

 over-near, or like : yet we see, that in great weak- 



