A greene forest, or A naturall historie vvherein may bee seene first the most sufferaigne vertues in all the whole kinde of stones & mettals: next of plants, as of herbes, trees, [and] shrubs, lastly of brute beastes, foules, fishes, creeping wormes [and] serpents, and that alphabetically: so that a table shall not neede. Compiled by Iohn Maplet, M. of Arte, and student in Cambridge: entending hereby yt God might especially be glorified: and the people furdered. Anno 1567.

Of the Swanne.

THe Swanne is called the swéete singing Birde, for that (as it were in footed verse) before hir death she ioyeth. In the Shipmens note or rule, the Swan prophecieth lucre & good lucke, as these verses seme to declare.

Cygnus in auspicijs semper laetissimus ales Hunc optant nautae quia se non mergit in vndis. A token of good lucke it is the ioyfull Swan to see Which hideth not hir selfe in sea but will with Shipmen bee.

She is fairely fethered & whight, but in flesh most blacke. She is one of those that knowing what vncleanesse commeth by venerie, before she goeth to foode, will to the waters to purge and make cleane hir selfe. This is Apolloes birde. There is a fable with y^e Poets that this Swan was altogither Phaetons loue, & that after y^e fall of his proud and presumptuous re∣quest, he was turned into this kinde of Birde. Pythagoras thought that the soule or spirite of

the Swan was immortall, and therfore said he it is, that she ioyeth so when as death calleth for hir.