HART.] NATURAL HISTORY. 145 



HARTS being the most cowardly and heartless creatures 

 have also the largest horns. 



Dekker, "News from Hell." 



OXEN, kine, bullocks or horses shall not be troubled 

 with any disease, if you hang a Hart's horn upon them. 

 Lupton, "A Thousand Notable Things," bk. vi. 53. 



A HART doth so abhor a ram, that he cannot abide the 

 sight of him. Ibid., bk. ix. 35. 



CERTAIN worms are bred in the bowels or guts of the 

 Hart, and they are destroyed by the eating of serpents, 

 which the Hart doth allure with the breath of his nose to 

 come out of their hole or den ; and lest the poison of 

 them should hurt him, he goes apace to some fair spring 

 of water, and whiles all his whole body is therein unto the 

 lips, little drops or tears distil out of his eyes, which at 

 length increaseth to a thing as big as a walnut, and are in 

 manner of a stone, and when he perceives he hath thereby 

 avoided all the poison, and being come forth of the water, 

 with the rubbing of his eyes at a tree, the same lump or 

 stone (being a hindrance to his sight) he gets away. 

 Which matter or stone is a thing most effectual against 

 any venom or poison. The Arabian physicians call the 

 stone Bezoar. ibid., bk. x. 21. 



THE Hart hath a worm in his head, which vexes him 

 constantly in the spring. But every animal and man him- 

 self has a worm under the tongue. The Hart, where he 

 finds a serpent, fills his mouth with water, and pours it 

 into the hole, then with the breath of his mouth he draws 

 the serpent out, and treads on it with his feet and kills it, 

 and eats it. Any one who is wrapped in the hide of a 

 Hart does not fear serpents. The end of a hart's tail is 

 venomous. Hortus Sanitatis, bk. ii. 34. 



HARTS being stung with a kind of spider, or some such 

 venomous vermin, they cure themselves with eating cray- 

 fishes or fresh-water crabs. 



Holland's Pliny, bk. viii. ch. xxvii. 

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