MOUSE. | NATURAL HISTORY. 207 
or else hang one in the shop, as a thing by a secret 
antipathy that Moths cannot endure. Garments wrapped 
up in a lion’s skin will never have any moths. 
Mouffet, “Theatre of Insects,” p. 1100, 
‘Mouse. 
Mipsummer Nicut’s Dream, v. I, 394. 
Tue Mouse is a little beast, and he breedeth and is 
gendered of humours of the earth. Also the liver of this 
beast waxeth in the full of the moon, like as a certain fish 
of the sea increaseth then, and waneth again in the waning 
of the moon. And the Mouse drinketh not, and if he 
drinketh, he dieth ; and is a gluttonous beast, and is there- 
fore beguiled with a little meat when he smelleth it, and 
will taste thereof. His urine stinketh and is contagious ; 
and his biting is venomous, and also his tail is venomous 
accounted. In harvest the male and female gather corn, and 
charge either other upon the womb, and the male draweth 
the female so charged by the tail to her den, and dis- 
chargeth her, and layeth up that stuff in a place in the 
den, and thus they go again to travail, and gather ears of 
corn, and the male layeth himself on his own back, and his 
female chargeth him, and taketh his tail in her mouth, and 
draweth him so home to the den. And though mice be 
full grievous and noyful beasts, yet they be in many things 
good and profitable in medicine. Mice dirt bruised with 
vinegar keepeth and saveth the head from falling of hair. 
His new skin laid all about the heel, healeth and saveth 
kibes and wounds therefro. 
Bartholomew (Berthelet), bk. xviii. § 73. 
Put one or more quick [i.e., live] Mice in a long or 
deep earthen pot, and set the same unto a fire made of ash- 
wood; and when the pot begins to wax hot, the Mice 
therein will chirp or make a noise; whereat all the mice 
that are nigh them will run towards them, and so will leap 
into the fire, as though they should come to help their 
poor imprisoned friends and neighbours. The cause whereof 
Mizaldus ascribes to the smoke of the ash-wood. 
Lupton, “Notable Things,” bk. x. § 93. 
