RAVEN.] NATURAL HISTORY. 257 



Rats, the Physicians cure the falling-off of the hair. And 

 if their urine do fall upon the bare place of a man, it 

 maketh the flesh rot unto the bones, neither will it suffer 

 any scar to be made upon the bones. 



Topsell, " Four-footed Beasts," pp. 403-4. 



IT is found by observation that Rats and Dormice will 

 forsake old and ruinous houses, three months before they 

 fall; for they perceive by an instinct of nature, that the joints 

 and fastening together of the posts and timber of the houses, 

 by little and little will be loosed, and so thereby that all 

 will fall to the ground. 



Lupton, " Notable Things," bk. ii. 87. 



IT is said that no Rats have ever been seen in this town 

 [Hatfield, Yorkshire]. Camden, "Britannia," col. 849. 



V. Mouse, Water-rat, Island. 

 Ratsbane. 



ii. KING HENRY IV., i. 2, 48. 



[The following quotation from Holland's Pliny, bk. xxii. 

 ch. xviii., seems appropriate : 



" If there be water and oil mingled to the juice of 

 Chameleon [carline Thistle], it draweth rats and mice to it, 

 but it is their bane, unless presently they drink water." 



But probably Shakespeare used the word as simply mean- 

 ing any poison. Florio gives "Ratsbane" as an equivalent 

 for corrosive sublimate and for arsensic.] 



Raven. 



THE Raven beholdeth the mouth of her birds when they 

 yawn. But she giveth them no meat ere she know and 

 see the likeness of her own blackness, and of her own 

 colour and feathers ; and when they begin to wax black, 

 then afterward she feedeth them with all her might and 

 strength. Ravens' birds be fed with dew of heaven all 

 the time that they have no black feathers. And is a 

 crying fowl, and hath diverse sound and voice ; for among 

 fowls only the Raven hath four and sixty changings of 

 voice. And is a guileful bird, and taketh away things 

 thievishly, and layeth and hideth them in privy places. 



