CHAPTER XIII 



REPTILS AND INSECTS. 



[Tms Chapter contains several extraordinary recipes for medicines to be compounded in various 

 ways from insects and reptiles. As a specimen one of them may be referred to which begins as 

 follows : " Cakinatio Bufonum. R. Twenty great fatt toades ; in May they are the best ; putt them 

 alive in a pipkin ; cover it, make a fire round it to the top ; let them stay on the fire till they make 

 no noise," &c. &c. Aubrey says that Dr. Thomas Willis mentions this medicine in his tractat De 

 Febribus, and describes it as a special remedy for the plague and other diseases. J. B.] 



No snakes or adders at Chalke, and toades very few : the nitre in the chalke is inimique to them. 



No snakes or adders at Harcot-woods belonging to Gawen, Esq. ; but in the woods of 



Compton Chamberleyn adjoyning they are plenty. At South Wraxhall and at Colem Parke, and 

 so to Mouncton-Farley, are adders. 



In Sir James Long's parke at Draycot-Cerne are grey lizards ; and no question in other places if 

 they were look't after ; but people take them for newts. They are of that family. About anno 

 1686 a boy lyeing asleep in a garden felt something dart down Ms throat, which killed him: 'tis 

 probable 'twas a little newt. They are exceeding nimble : they call them swifts at Newmarket 

 Heath. When I was a boy a young fellow slept on the grasse : after he awak't, happening to putt 

 his hand in his pocket, something bitt him by the top of his finger : he shak't it suddenly off so that 

 he could not perfectly discerne it. The biteing was so venomous that it overcame all help, and he 

 died in a few hours : 



" Virus edax superabat opera : penitusqj receptum 



Ossibus, et toto corpore pestis erat." OVID. FASTOR. 



Sir George Ent, M.D. had a tenant neer Cambridge that was stung with an adder. He happened 

 not to dye, but was spotted all over. One at Knaliill in Wilts, a neighbour of Dr. Wren's, was 

 stung, and it turned to a leprosy. (From S r . Chr. Wren.) 



At Neston Parke (Col. W. Eire's) in Cosham parish are huge snakes, an ell long ; and about the 

 Devises snakes doe abound. 



Toades are plentifull in North Wiltshire : but few in the chalkie countreys. In sawing of an ash 

 2 foot + square, of Mr. Saintlowe's, at Knighton in Chalke parish, was found a live toade about 1656 ; 

 the sawe cutt him asunder, and the bloud came on the under-sawyer's hand : he thought at first the 

 upper-sawyer had cutt his hand. Toades are oftentimes found in the milstones of Darbyshire. 



