Emblems of rarities: or Choyce observations out of worthy histories of many remarkable passages, and renowned actions of divers princes and severall nations With exquisite variety, and speciall collections of the natures of most sorts of creatures: delightfull and profitable to the minde. Collected by D.L.

A Description of the Raven.

THe Raven is a fowle give to rapacity and devo••••ring of flesh, great of body slow in flight, sharpe in sight, and frequenteth much in Italy, in the Alpes, in Spaine and in Egypt And this is to be understood o•• the great kinde of Ravens. Th•• skinne of the Raven is prepare•• and dressed artificially of th•• white tawyers, with the feathe•• remaining upon it, and that 〈◊〉〈◊〉 laid to a stomacke not well 〈◊〉〈◊〉 sickly, doth marvellously help•• digestion. This Fowle do•••• greatly above all other cov•••• mens carcases, and by a singula•• wit and naturall gift, it under••standeth of mans death, pres••••ging it few dayes before. With

his sharpe eye-sight also it per∣ceiveth a farre off his most de∣sired foode. There bee some that writeth marvellous things of this Fowle, that in the time of Warre, seven dayes before hand, it smelleth and perceiveth by scent, the place where the battaile shall bee, and common∣••y doth associate it selfe to that part which it perceiveth shall perish with the sword. And ther∣fore in ancient times Princes had their South-sayers, and beholders of birds, that did most diligently behold the eyes of the Ravens, and marke to what part they turned their eyes, and which side they did presage to perish in battaile▪ S. Ambrose writeth, that a Raven conceiueth without the seede of the male, ••nd to have generation without conjunction of males & femals,

and that they live exceeding long, so that their age is full compleat with an hundred yeares, and when they come to extreame old age, that then the upper part of their bills doth so over grow the lower part, so that it hindreth and re∣straineth it, that they cannot open their bills to take foode, and therefore are compelled to dye by famine, for hee doth not sharpen this bill against a stone, as the Eagle is wont to doe.

Notes

• Stomacke digestion.