FOX.] NATURAL HISTORY. 119 



As to Flies, we have none that can do hurt or hindrance 

 naturally unto any. The cut- or girt-waisted (for so I 

 English the word Insectd] are the hornets, wasps, bees, and 

 such like, whereof we have great store, and of which an 

 opinion is conceived that the first do breed of the corrup- 

 tion of dead horses, the second of pears and apples, and 

 the last of kine and oxen ; which may be true, especially 

 the first and latter in some parts of the beast, and not 

 their whole substances, as also in the second, sith [since] 

 we have never wasps, but when our fruit beginneth to wax 

 ripe. Yet sure I am of this that no one living creature 

 corrupteth without the production of another ; as we may 

 see by ourselves, whose flesh doth alter into lice ; and also 

 in sheep for excessive numbers of flesh-flies, if they be 

 suffered to be unburied. 



Hohnshed^ "Description of England," p. 228. 



Fowl. 



OUT of the fig-tree there comes such a sharp vapour, 

 that if a hen be hanged thereon, it .will so prepare her, 

 that she will be soon and easily roasted. And the like will 

 be if the feathers be plucked off from Fowls and birds, 

 and the skins pulled off from beasts, and then laid or 

 covered a day or two in a heap of wheat. 



L upton, "A Thousand Notable Things," bk. iv. 19. 



% 



You are now in Lincolnshire, where you can want no 

 Fowl, if you can devise means to catch them. 



Lilly, "Galatea," Act i. Scene 4. 



Bird. 



Fox. 



A Fox hight vulpes, and hath that name as it were 

 wallowing feet aside [uneven-legged : see below], and goeth 

 never forthright, but alway aslant, and with fraud. And 

 is a false beast and deceivable ; for when him lacketh meat, 

 he feigneth himself dead, and then fowls come to him, as 

 it were to a carrion, and anon he catcheth one and de- 



