GOAT 



.] NATURAL HISTORY. 129 



none but the fairest. Gnats seem to be more worthy esteem 

 than the ordinary sort of almanac-makers ; for they will tell 

 you the weather at all times, and for nothing, and that 

 more certainly and truly. For if the Gnats near sunset 

 do play up and down in open air, they presage heat ; if 

 in the shade, warm and mild showers ; but if they alto- 

 gether sting those that pass by them, then expect cold 

 weather and very much rain. When a Gnat comes forth of 

 the oak-apple about Michaelmas, it foretells war and 

 hostility ; if a spider, dearth ; if a worm, fertility and fruitful- 

 ness. If any one would find water either in a hill or valley, 

 let him observe the sun-rising, and where the Gnats whirl 

 round in form of an obelisk, underneath there is water to 

 be found. Yea, dreams of Gnats do foretell news of war 

 or a disease, and that so much the more dangerous as it 

 shall be apprehended to approach the more principal parts 

 of the body. Hang some horse-hair and make it fast in 

 the middle of the doors, and Gnats will not come in at it. 

 Our countrymen that live about the fens have invented a 

 fen-canopy, being made of a broad, plain, half-dry, some- 

 what hard piece or many pieces together of cow's dung, and 

 these they hang at their bed's feet ; with the smell and 

 juice whereof the Gnats being very much taken, and feed- 

 ing thereon all the night long, let them sleep quietly in 

 their beds. 



ZMouffet, " Theatre of Insects," bk. i. ch. xiii. 



Goat. 



i. KING HENRY IV., iii. i, 39. 



THE Goat breathes at the ears, and not at the nose, and 

 is seld without fever. And we mean not that Goats see 

 by night than by day. And if a man draw one out 

 >f the flock by the beard, the others be astonied and behold, 

 .nd also the same happeth when one of them biteth a cer- 

 tin herb. And if the Goat conceive afore the northern 

 dnd, she yeaneth males, and if she conceive afore the 

 >uthern wind, she yeaneth females. And if a man take a 

 Goat, and rear him up suddenly, then the other rear them 

 also, and behold him sadly. Serpents be chased and driven 

 away with ashes of Goats' horns, and with their wool burnt. 



9 



