NATURAL HISTORY. 333 



I,.,] 

 me, and seeing his female so gripped by the Viper, he 

 ceased not to peck upon his head until the brains came 

 out, and so the Viper fell down dead. The scorpions and 

 the Vipers are enemies one to another. The tortoise of 

 the earth is also an enemy to the Viper, and the Viper to 

 it, wherefore if it can get origan, or wild savory, or rue, 

 it eateth thereof, and then is nothing afraid to fight with 

 the Viper, but if the tortoise can find none of these, then 

 they die incontinently by the poison of the Viper, and of 

 this there hath been trial. Garlic is poison to the Viper, 

 and therefore having tasted thereof she dieth, except she 

 eat some rue. A Viper being struck with a reed once, it 

 amazeth her, and maketh her senseless, but being struck 

 the second time, she recovereth and runneth away ; and 

 the like is reported of the beech-tree, saving that it slayeth 

 the Viper, and she is not able to go from it. If you lay 

 fire on the one side, and a piece of yew on the other side, 

 and then place a Viper in the middle betwixt them both, 

 she will rather choose to run through the fire, than to go 

 over the branches of yew. The Viper is also afraid of 

 mustard-seed, for, it being laid in her path, she flieth from 

 it, and, if she taste of it, she dieth. If the hands or the 

 body of a man be anointed with the juice of the root of 

 Arum, the Viper will never bite him ; the like is reported 

 of the juice of Dragons, expressed out of the leaves, fruit, 

 or root. Also if a Viper do behold a good smaragd 

 [emerald], her eyes will melt and fall out of her head. 

 But the Viper is most delighted with vetches and the 

 savine-tree. When the male misseth the female, he seeketh 

 her out very diligently, and with a pleasing and flattering 

 noise calleth for her, and when he perceiveth she ap- 

 proacheth, he casteth up all his venom, as it were in rever- 

 ence of matrimonial dignity. In Egypt they eat Vipers 

 and divers other serpents, with no more difficulty than they 

 would do eels, so do many people both in the Eastern and 

 Western parts of the New -found-lands. Whose diet of 

 eating Vipers I do much pity, if the want of other food 

 constrain them thereunto ; but if it arise from the insatiable 

 and greedy intemperancy of their own appetites, I judge 

 them eager of dainties, which adventure for it at such a 

 market of poison. A mountain - viper chased a man so 

 hardly that he was forced to take a tree, unto the which 



