104 SHAKESPEARE’S [ELM. 
mayeth them, for they fear his horns; and not only a 
ram, but also the gruntling clamour or cry of hogs. Lions 
set upon the young calves of Elephants and wound them, 
but, at the sight of the mothers, the lions run away, and 
when the mothers find their young ones embrued in their 
own blood, they themselves are so enraged, that they kill 
them, and so retire from them, after which time the lions 
return and eat their flesh. In the River Ganges there are 
blue worms of sixty cubits long having two arms; these, 
when the Elephants come to drink in that river, take their 
trunks in their hands and pull them off. At the sight of a 
beautiful woman iBlephants| leave off all rage and grow meek 
and gentle. In Africa there are certain springs of water, 
which, if at any time they dry up, by the teeth of 
Elephants, they are opened and recovered again. In the 
night-time, Elephants seem to lament with sighs and tears” 
their captivity and bondage, but if any come to that speed, 
like modest persons they refrain suddenly, and are ashamed 
to be found either murmuring or sorrowing. When they 
drink a leech, they are grievously pained. The fime [or 
dung] by anointing cureth a lousy skin, and taketh away 
that power which breedeth these vermin; the same per- 
fumed driveth gnats or marsh-flies out of a house. 
Topsell, “‘ Four-footed Beasts,” pp. 150-65. 
Elm. 
The barky fingers of the clm. 
Minsummer Nicut’s Dream, iv. 1, 49. 
Tue shadow of Elms is mild and nourishing to those 
things that it falls pots Hortus Sanitatis, bk. i. ch. dvii. 
[Evelyn (“ Silva,” bk. i ch. iv.), among the uses of the Elm, 
states that it is proper for dressers and shovel-board tables, and 
that cattle prefer the dried leaves to oats in the winter when 
hay and fodder are dear.] 
Tue leaves of an Elm-tree, or of peach-tree, falling before 
their time doth foreshow or betokens a murrain or death of 
cattle. Lupton, “A Thousand Notable Things,” bk. iii, § 25. 
