The history of four-footed beasts and serpents describing at large their true and lively figure, their several names, conditions, kinds, virtues ... countries of their breed, their love and hatred to mankind, and the wonderful work by Edward Topsell ; whereunto is now added, The theater of insects, or, Lesser living creatures ... by T. Muffet ...

About this Item

Title
The history of four-footed beasts and serpents describing at large their true and lively figure, their several names, conditions, kinds, virtues ... countries of their breed, their love and hatred to mankind, and the wonderful work by Edward Topsell ; whereunto is now added, The theater of insects, or, Lesser living creatures ... by T. Muffet ...
Author
Topsell, Edward, 1572-1625?
Publication
London :: Printed by E. Cotes for G. Sawbridge ... T. Williams ... and T. Johnson ...,
1658.
Rights/Permissions

To the extent possible under law, the Text Creation Partnership has waived all copyright and related or neighboring rights to this keyboarded and encoded edition of the work described above, according to the terms of the CC0 1.0 Public Domain Dedication (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/). This waiver does not extend to any page images or other supplementary files associated with this work, which may be protected by copyright or other license restrictions. Please go to http://www.textcreationpartnership.org/ for more information.

Subject terms
Zoology -- Pre-Linnean works.
Link to this Item
http://name.umdl.umich.edu/A42668.0001.001
Cite this Item
"The history of four-footed beasts and serpents describing at large their true and lively figure, their several names, conditions, kinds, virtues ... countries of their breed, their love and hatred to mankind, and the wonderful work by Edward Topsell ; whereunto is now added, The theater of insects, or, Lesser living creatures ... by T. Muffet ..." In the digital collection Early English Books Online. https://name.umdl.umich.edu/A42668.0001.001. University of Michigan Library Digital Collections. Accessed June 14, 2024.

Pages

CHAP. XXXVIII.

Of the Locust, Scorpion, Notonectum, the Grashopper, the Wasp, the forked Claw, the Newt, the little Heart, and the Lowse, all Water-Insects.

THE Insect-Locust, is like the Lobster, for that cannot be called either flesh or fish: you see the figure of it: it is of a pale green colour: I have seen three kindes of Lake Scor∣pions, and I have them by me: the first is somewhat black, the other two are like to white

[illustration]

Page 1126

sand: we call some Insects of

[illustration]
the water Notoncta, which do not swim upon their bellies as the rest do, but upon their backs, from whence it is pro∣bable that men learned the art of swimming upon their backs also. Some of these have eyes, shoulders, and bodies all black, some are green, some are fiery coloured, and some pitch co∣loured. For you shall seldom see two of them of the same colour; nature hath so vari∣ously sported her self in ador∣ning them. Water-Grashoppers hold the forh described, but their eyes are extreme black, and their bodies are ash colou∣red. The Wasp hath a brow∣nish body all over, except the black eyes. The Forked Claw hath almost the same colour, but it is more full, it seems to want eyes, but it hath them hid within, whereby it both sees and perceives the object. The Lizard is of divers colours, and delights in catching Fish, it is common about the British shores, where it lyeth in wait to catch Fish. The Corculus hath the just fashion of a heart, the feet and head being taken away; it hath very little black eyes, and six legs of the same colour, & each with two clawes. The Sea-Lowse is an Insect that is an enemy to all kinde of Whales, which by biting and tickling it puts into such a rage, that they are forced to run upon the sand, and hasten to dry land: I know nothing concerning the use of these creatures; but I seriously ex∣hort posterity to search out the use of them.

Do you have questions about this content? Need to report a problem? Please contact us.