io 4 SHAKESPEARE'S [ELM. 



mayeth them, for they fear his horns ; and not only a 

 ram, but also the gruntling clamour or cry of hogs. Lions 

 set upon the young calves of Elephants and wound them, 

 but, at the sight of the mothers, the lions run away, and 

 when the mothers find their young ones embrued in their 

 own blood, they themselves are so enraged, that they kill 

 them, and so retire from them, after which time the lions 

 return and eat their flesh. In the River Ganges there are 

 blue worms of sixty cubits long having two arms ; these, 

 when the Elephants come to drink in that river> take their 

 trunks in their hands and pull them off. At the sight of a 

 beautiful woman [Elephants] leave off all rage and grow meek 

 and gentle. In Africa there are certain springs of water, 

 which, if at any time they dry up, by the teeth of 

 Elephants, they are opened and recovered again. In the 

 night-time, Elephants seem to lament with sighs and tears 

 their captivity and bondage, but if any come to that speed, 

 like modest persons they refrain suddenly, and are ashamed 

 to be found either murmuring or sorrowing. When they 

 drink a leech, they are grievously pained. The fime [or 

 dung] by anointing cureth a lousy skin, and taketh away 

 that power which breedeth these vermin ; the same per- 

 fumed driveth gnats or marsh-flies out of a house. 



Topsell, "Four-footed Beasts," pp. 150-65. 



Elm. 



The barky fingers of the elm. 



MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM, iv. i, 49. 



THE shadow of Elms is mild and nourishing to those 

 things that it falls upon. Hortus Sanitat ^ bk . L ch . dvii . 



[Evelyn (" Silva," bk. i. ch. iv.), among the uses of the Elm, 

 states that it is proper for dressers and shovel-board tables, and 

 that cattle prefer the dried leaves to oats in the winter when 

 hay and fodder are dear.] 



THE leaves of an Elm-tree, or of peach-tree, falling before 

 their time doth foreshow or betokens a murrain or death of 

 Cattle. Lupton, "A Thousand Notable Things," bk. iii. 25. 



