42 



History of Nature. 



[BOOK VIII. 



Horseback, the Poison was so strong that it passed along 

 the Staff, and destroyed both Horse and Man ; and yet a 

 Weasel hath a deadly Power to kill even such a Monster as 

 this (for Kings have been desirous to see the Manner how he 



is killed). So Nature hath de- 

 lighted to match every Thing in 

 the World with its equal ! They 

 cast these Weasels into their Holes, 

 which it is easy to know by the 

 Poison alone. They destroy them 

 at the same Time with their strong 

 Smell, but they die themselves ; 

 and so the Combat of Nature is 



Basilisk. Montfaufon, torn. iii. pi. 60. finish ed . 



CHAPTER XXII. 

 Of Wolves. 1 



IT is also commonly believed in Italy that the Eye-sight 

 of Wolves is hurtful ; 2 so that if they look on a Man before he 

 see them, they cause him to lose his Voice for the time. 

 Those which are produced in Africa and Egypt are small, 

 and without Spirit; but in colder Climates they are more 

 Fierce and Cruel. That Men are transformed into Wolves, 

 and restored again to their former Shapes, we must confi- 

 dently believe to be False, or else give credit to all those 

 Tales which we have for so many ages found to be mere 

 Fables. But whence this Opinion came to be so firmly 

 settled, that when we would give Men the most opprobrious 

 Words, we term them Versipelles, or Turn-coats, I will shew. 

 Euanthes, a not contemptible Writer among the Greeks, re- 

 porteth having found among the Records of the Arcadians 



1 Canis Lupus. LINN. The Wolf. Wern. Club. 



2 So Virgil, Eel. ix. 



" His very voice the hapless Moeris lost ; 

 His path some wolf's first darted glance hast crost." Wern. Club. 



