FLEA. | NATURAL HISTORY. 115 
Flax. 
Merry Wives or Winpsor, v. 5, 159. 
Tue Flax is made to knots and little bundles, and so 
laid in water, and lieth there long time. And then it is 
taken out of the water, and laid abroad till it be dried, 
and turned and wended [Bartholomew—desiccantur| in the 
sun, and then bound in pretty niches and bundles; and 
afterward knocked, beaten and brayed, and carfled [? sliced ?] 
rodded, and gnodded [? from gnide, i.¢., rub ?] ribbed and 
heckled, and at the last spun. Then the thread is sod and 
bleached, and bucked and oft laid to drying, wetted and 
washed, and sprinkled with water until that it be white, 
after diverse working and travail. 
Bartholamew (Berthelet), bk. xvii. § 97. 
Fiax ought by law to be sown in every country-town 
in England, more or less; but I see no success of that 
good and wholesome law. 
Holinshed, “Description of England,” p. 111. 
Flea. 
i. Kinc Henry IV., ii. 1, 16, 23. 
Tue Flea is a little worm, and grieveth men most, and 
it is namely fed with powder [i.e., dust]; and is a little 
worm of wonder lightness, and scapeth and voideth peril 
with leaping, and not with running, and waxeth slow, and 
faileth in cold time, and in summer time it waxeth quiver 
and swift. And the Flea is bred white, and changeth as 
it were suddenly into black colour, and desireth blood, and 
doth let them that would sleep with sharp biting, and 
spareth not kings, but a little Flea grieveth them, if he 
touch their flesh. And to Fleas wormwood is venom, and 
so be leaves of the wild fig-tree. And coloquintida a weed 
that is like to a wild nep helpeth against Fleas, if it be 
stamped and meddled with water, and sprung in the place 
there as many Fleas be; and they bite full sore against 
rain. Bartholomew (Berthelet), bk. xviii. § 89. 
A S.utrtisu kept house breedeth Fleas, and lodging next 
to stables of horses; also the horse-urine breedeth Fleas, 
his dung; falling upon his tail, breedeth snakes, his flesh, 
wasps. Batman's addition to Bartholomew, bk, xvili. § 89. 
