234 SHAKESPEARE’S [ PARROT. 
if their skins after they be dead be hung up in the 
presence of one another, the hair will fall off from the 
panther. If anything be anointed with broth wherein a 
cock hath been sodden, neither panthers nor lions will ever 
touch it. Leopards are afraid of a certain tree called 
Leopard’s-tree. Panthers are also afraid of the skull of a 
dead man, and run from the sight thereof. Likewise in 
Armenia there are certain fishes which are poison to lions, 
bears, wolves, lynxes and panthers; the powder of this fish 
the inhabitants put into the sides and flesh of their sheep, 
goats and kids without all harm to these beasts,—but if 
the panthers or any ravening beast come and devour any 
of those sheep so dressed, presently they die by poison. 
In hunting of wild beasts the wary woodman must make 
good choice of his horse, not only for the mettle and 
agility—-which are very necessary,—but also for the colour; 
for the grey horse is fittest for the bear and most terrible 
to him, the yellow or fire-colour against the boar, but the 
brown and reddish-colour against the panther. Leopards 
and panthers also love wine above all other drink. If the 
skin or hide of a leopard being taken and flayed be covered 
or laid upon the ground, there is such force and virtue in 
the same that any venomous or poisonous serpent dare not 
approach into the same place where it is so laid. The 
gall of a panther being received into the body either in 
meat or drink, doth instantly and out of hand kill or 
poison him which doth so receive it. 
Topsell, ‘*Four-footed Beasts,” s.v. Pardal. 
Parrot. 
MercuanT oF Venice, ili. 5, 51 
Tse Parrot can endure any other kind of water in any 
wise, but dies of rain; and therefore they build in Mt. 
Gilboa, because there it seldom or never rains. It drinks 
wine freely, and is much pleased with the sight of a virgin. 
Hortus Sanitatis, bk. itt, § 102. 
SHE hath an head as hard as is her beak; when she 
learns to speak, she must be beaten about the head with a 
rod of iron, for otherwise she careth for no blows. 
Holland’s Pliny, bk. x. ch. xlii. 
