The workes of that famous chirurgion Ambrose Parey translated out of Latin and compared with the French. by Tho: Johnson. Whereunto are added three tractates our of Adrianus Spigelius of the veines, arteries, & nerves, with large figures. Also a table of the bookes and chapters.

Of the love of Beasts one towards another, and to their young.

PLutarch writeth, That all kind of creatures bear a singular love, and have a kind of care of those that are generated of them, and the industry of Partridges this way is much com∣mended; for during the time that their young ones are weak and unable to fly, they teach them to lye upon their backs, and to hide themselves among the clods on the ground, that so being al∣most of the same colour, they may not be discerned by the Faulkoner. But if notwithstanding, they see any body coming, and that he is near them, they do with a hundred dodges and stoopings of themselves, as if they were weary with flying, entice him away from their young to follow after them, and when they have their purpose, they then, as if they had recovered some fresh strength, fly quite away; Who can but wonder at this both affection and subtilty?

In Florida part of the West-Indies, they have a Beast, which for the variety and deformity of it I cannot pass over in silence; the natives call it Succarath, the Canibals, Su. It keeps for the most part about the Rivers, and the Sea-shore, and lives by prey. When he perceiveth that he is pursued by the Huntsman, he gets his young ones upon his back, and with his tail, which is very long and broad, he covereth them, and so flying, provideth both for his own and their safe∣ty; neither can he be taken by any other way but by pits, which those savage men use to dig in the places near which he is to run, into which at unawares he tumbles headlong.

This picture of him here, I drew out of Thevets Cosmographie.

[illustration] Succarath

Neither are those things less wonderful that are reported of Hares, for when they would go to their seat, they sever their young, and commit them to the trust of divers places, it may be two acres asunder one from another, lest peradventure a Huntsman, a Dog, or any Man should chance to come that way, and they might be in danger to be lost at once. And then after they have traced up and down, hither and thither, and every way, that the Dogs may not trace them, nor the Huntsman prick them, they take a leap or two, and leap into their forms.

Nor inferior to this is the craft of the Hedg-hog: for when the Fox pursueth him, and is now at his heels, he rowls himself up in his prickles like a Chesnut in the outward shell, so that every part being rounded and encompassed with these sharp and dangerous pricks, he cannot be hurt: and so saves himself by this trick. For his young he provides in this manner.

In the time of Vintage he goes to the Vines, and with his feet he strikes off the boughs and the grapes, and then rowling his body makes them stick upon his prickles, and so doth (as it were) take his burthen upon his back, and then returns to his hole; you would think that the Grapes did move of themselves; the prey he divides between himself and his young.

Notes

• The industry of Partridgee in preserving their young.
• How Hares provide for themselves and their young, for fear of hunters.
• The care of the Hedghog to provide for her young.