HART, | NATURAL HISTORY. 145 
Harts being the most cowardly and heartless creatures 
have also the largest horns. 
Dekker, “News from Hell.” 
Oxen, kine, bullocks or horses shall not be troubled 
with any disease, if you hang a Hart’s horn upon them. 
Lupton, “A Thousand Notable Things,” bk. vi. § 53. 
A Hart doth so abhor a ram, that he cannot abide the 
sight of him, Ibid., bk. ix. § 36. 
CERTAIN worms are bred in the bowels or guts of the 
Hart, and they are destroyed by the eating of serpents, 
which the Hart doth allure with the breath of his nose to 
come out of their hole or den; and lest the poison of 
them should hurt him, he goes apace to some fair spring 
of water, and whiles all his whole body is therein unto the 
lips, little drops or tears distil out of his eyes, which at 
length increaseth to a thing as big as a walnut, and are in 
manner of a stone, and when he perceives he hath thereby 
avoided all the poison, and being come forth of the water, 
with the rubbing of his eyes at a tree, the same lump or 
stone (being a hindrance to his sight) he gets away. 
Which matter or stone is a thing most effectual against 
any venom or poison. The Arabian physicians call the 
stone Bezoar. Ibid, bk. x. § 21. 
Tue Hart hath a worm in his head, which vexes him 
constantly in the spring. But every animal and man him- 
self has a worm under the tongue. The Hart, where he 
finds a serpent, fills his mouth with water, and pours it 
into the hole, then with the breath of his mouth he draws 
the serpent out, and treads on it with his feet and kills it, 
and eats it. Any one who is wrapped in the hide of a 
Hart does not fear serpents, The end of a hart’s tail is 
venomous. Hortus Sanitatis, bk. ii. § 34. 
Harts being stung with a kind of spider, or some such 
venomous vermin, they cure themselves with eating cray- 
fishes or fresh-water crabs. 
Holland's Pliny, bk. viii. ch. xxvii. 
Io 
