CHAPTER XIII.
REPTILS AND INSECTS.
[THIS Chapter contains several extraordinary recipes for medicines to be compounded in various ways from insects and reptiles. As a specimen one of them may he referred to which begins as follows:-“Calcinatio Bufonum. R. Twenty great fatt toades; in May they are the best; putt them alive in a pipkin; cover it, make a fire round it to the top; let them stay on the fire till they make no noise,” &c. &c. Aubrey says that Dr. Thomas Willis mentions this medicine in his tractat De Febribus, and describes it as a special remedy for the plague and other diseases.—J. B.]
No snakes or adders at Chalke, and toades very few: the nitre in the chalke is inimique to them. No snakes or adders at Harcot-woods belonging to — Gawen, Esq.; but in the woods of Compton Chamberleyn adjoyning they are plenty. At South Wraxhall and at Colern Parke, and so to Mouncton-Farley, are adders.
In Sir James Long’s parke at Draycot-Cerne are grey lizards; and no question in other places if they were look’t after; but people take them for newts. They are of that family. About anno 1686 a boy lyeing asleep in a garden felt something dart down his throat, which killed him: ’tis probable ’twas a little newt. They are exceeding nimble: they call them swifts at Newmarket Heath. When I was a boy a young fellow slept on the grasse: after he awak’t, happening to putt his hand in his pocket, something bitt him by the top of his finger: he shak’t it suddenly off so that he could not perfectly discerne it. The biteing was so venomous that it overcame all help, and he died in a few hours:-
“Virus edax superabat opera: penituaq{ue} receptum
Ossibus, et toto corpore pestis erat.”—OVID. FASTOR.
Sir George Ent, M.D. had a tenant neer Cambridge that was stung with an adder. He happened not to dye, but was spotted all over. One at Knahill in Wilts, a neighbour of Dr. Wren’s, was stung, and it turned to a leprosy. (From Sr. Chr. Wren.)
At Neston Parke (Col. W. Eire’s) in Cosham parish are huge snakes, an ell long; and about the Devises snakes doe abound.
Toades are plentifull in North Wiltshire: but few in the chalkie countreys. In sawing of an ash 2 foot + square, of Mr. Saintlowe’s, at Knighton in Chalke parish, was found a live toade about 1656; the sawe cutt him asunder, and the bloud came on the under-sawyer’s hand: he thought at first the upper-sawyer had cutt his hand. Toades are oftentimes found in the milstones of Darbyshire.
Snailes are everywhere; but upon our downes, and so in Dorset, and I believe in Hampshire, at such degree east and west, in the summer time are abundance of very small snailes on the grasse and come, not much bigger, or no bigger than small pinnes heads. Though this is no strange thing among us, yet they are not to be found in the north part of Wilts, nor on any northern wolds. When I had the honour to waite on King Charles I.* and the Duke of York to the top of Silbury hill, his Royal Highnesse happened to cast his eye on some of these small snailes on the turfe of the hill. He was surprised with the novelty, and commanded me to pick some up, which I did, about a dozen or more, immediately; for they are in great abundance. The next morning as he was abed with his Dutches at Bath he told her of it, and sent Dr. Charleton to me for them, to shew her as a rarity.
* [This should be “Charles II.” who visited Avebury and Silbury Hill, in company with his brother, afterwards James II., in the autumn of the year 1663, when Aubrey attended them by the King’s command. See his account of the royal visit, in the Memoir of Aubrey, 4to. 1845.—J. B.]
In the peacefull raigne of King James I. the Parliament made an act for provision of rooke-netts and catching crows to be given in charge of court-barons, which is by the stewards observed, but I never knew the execution of it. I have heard knowing countreymen affirme that rooke-wormes, which the crows and rookes doe devour at sowing time, doe turne to chafers, which I think are our English locusts: and some yeares wee have such fearfull armies of them that they devour all manner of green things; and if the crowes did not destroy these wormes, it would oftentimes happen. Parliaments are not infallible, and some thinke they were out in this bill.
Bees. Hampshire has the name for the best honey of England, and also the worst; sc. the forest honey: but the south part of Wiltshire having much the like turfe must afford as good, or little inferiour to it. ’Tis pitty these profitable insects should loose their lives for their industry.
“Flebat Aristæus, quod Apes cum stirpe necatas
Viderat incoeptos destituisse favos.”-OVID. FAST. lib. i.
A plaster of honey effectually helpeth a bruise. (From Mr. Francis Potter, B. D., of Kilmanton.) It seemes to be a rational medicine: for honey is the extraction of the choicest medicinal flowers.
Mr. Butler of Basingstoke, in Hampshire, who wrote a booke of Bees, had a daughter he called his honey-girle; to whom, when she was born, he gave certain stocks of bees; the product of which when she came to be married, was 400li. portion. (From — Boreman, of Kingston-upon-Thames, D.D.)
Mr. Harvey, at Newcastle, gott 80li. per annum by bees. (I thinke Varro somewhere writes that in Spaine two brothers got almost as much yearly by them.—J. EVELYN.) Desire of Mr. Hook, R.S.S. a copie of the modelle of his excellent bee-hive, March 1684-5; better than any yet known. See Mr. J. Houghton’s Collections, No. 1683, June, where he hath a good modelle of a bee-hive, pag. 166. Mr. Paschal hath an ingeniouse contrivance for bees at Chedsey; sc. they are brought into his house. Bee-hive at Wadham College, Oxon; see Dr. Plott’s Oxfordshire, p. 263.
Heretofore, before our plantations in America, and consequently before the use of sugar, they sweetened their [drink, &c.] with honey; as wee doe now with sugar. The name of honey-soppes yet remaines, but the use is almost worne out. (At Queen’s College, Oxon, the cook treats the whole hall with honey-sops on Good Friday at dinner.—BISHOP TANNER.) Now, 1686, since the great increase of planting of sugar-canes in the Barbados, &c. sugar is but one third of the price it was at thirty yeares since. In the time of the Roman Catholique religion, when a world of wax candles were used in the churches, bees-wax was a considerable commodity.
To make Metheglyn:-(from Mistress Hatchman. This receipt makes good Metheglyn; I thinke as good as the Devises). Allow to every quart of honey a gallon of water; and when the honey is dissolved, trie if it will beare an egg to the breadth of three pence above the liquor; or if you will have it stronger putt in more honey. Then set it on the fire, and when the froth comes on the toppe of it, skimme it cleane; then crack eight or ten hen-egges and putt in the liquor to cleare it: two or three handfulls of sweet bryar, and so much of muscovie, and sweet marjoram the like quantity; some doe put sweet cis, or if you please put in a little of orris root. Boyle all these untill the egges begin to look black, (these egges may be enough for a hoggeshead,) then straine it forth through a fine sieve into a vessell to coole; the next day tunne it up in a barrell, and when it hath workt itself cleare, which will be in about a weeke’s time, stop it up very close, and if you make it strong enough, sc. to carry the breadth of a sixpence, it will keep a yeare. This receipt is something neer that of Mr. Thorn. Piers of the Devises, the great Metheglyn-maker. Metheglyn is a pretty considerable manufacture in this towne time out of mind. I doe believe that a quantity of mountain thyme would be a very proper ingredient; for it is most wholesome and fragrant [Aubrey also gives another “receipt to make white metheglyn,” which he obtained “from old Sir Edward Baynton, 1640.” I have seen this old English beverage made by my grandmother, as here described.—J. B.]
Mr. Francis Potter, Rector of Kilmanton, did sett a hive of bees in one of the lances of a paire of scales in a little closet, and found that in summer dayes they gathered about halfe a pound a day; and one day, which he conceived was a honey-dew, they gathered three pounds wanting a quarter. The hive would be something lighter in the morning than at night. Also he tooke five live bees and putt them in a paper, which he did cutt like a grate, and weighed them, and in an hower or two they would wast the weight of three or four wheatcornes. He bids me observe their thighes in a microscope. (Upon the Brenta river, by Padua in Italy, they have hives of bees in open boates; the bees goe out to feed and gather till the honey-dews are spent neer the boate; and then the bee master rows the boate to a fresh place, and by the sinking of the boate knows when to take the honey, &c.—J. EVELYN.)