iQo THE BOOK OF HERBS 



various remedies which animals find for themselves. 

 " If the Asse be oppressed with melancholy, he eats of 

 the herbe Asplenium ... so the wilde Goats being shot 

 with Darts or Arrows, cure themselves with Dittany, 

 which Herb hath the power to worke them out of the 

 Body and to heale up the wound." Gerarde adds that 

 the "Deere in Candle" seek the same remedy, and 

 Parkinson remarks of Hemp Agrimony, "It is sayd that 

 hunters have observed that Deere being wounded by 

 the eating of this herbe have been healed of their hurts." 

 Drayton's Hermit refers to dictam or dittany. 



And this is dictam which we prize 

 Shot shafts and darts expelling. 



Shelley is less definite. He only laments : 



The wounded deer must seek the herb no more 

 In which its heart cure lies. 



Goats do not seek Sea-Holly as a remedy, but it has 

 a startling effect upon them if, by accident, they touch 

 it. " They report that the herb Sea-Holly {Eryngium 

 maritimum), if one goat take it into her mouth, it 

 causeth her first to stand still, and afterwards the 

 whole flocke, untill such time as the Shepherd take 

 it forth of her mouth, as Plutarch writeth." ^ How- 

 ever much these wild theories may exceed facts as to 

 animals curing themselves, they are not altogether with- 

 out reason, for the instinct of beasts leading them to 

 healing herbs has often been noticed. Evelyn says : "I 

 have heard of one Signior Jaquinto, Physician to Queen 

 Anne (Mother of the Blessed Martyr, Charles the First), 

 and was so to one of the Popes. That observing the 

 Scurvy and Dropsy to be the Epidemical and Domi- 

 nent Diseases of this Nation, he went himself into the 

 Hundreds of Essex (reputed the most unhealthy County 

 of this Island), and us'd to follow the Sheep and Cattell 



' Gerarde. 



