Moon-calf, the offspring of a woman, engendered solely by the power of the moon.--Pliny, Natural History, x. 64.
Mouse. To eat food which a mouse has nibbled, will give a sore throat.
It is a bad omen if a mouse gnaws the clothes which a person is wearing.--Burton, Anatomy of Melancholy, 214 (1621).
A fried mouse is a specific for small-pox.
Ostrich. An ostrich can digest iron.
Stephen. I could eat the very hilts for anger.
Kno´well. A sign of your good digestion; you have an ostrich stomach.--B. Jonson, Every Man in His Humor, iii. 1 (1598).
I’ll make thee eat iron like an ostrich, and swallow my sword.--Shakespeare, 2 Henry VI. act iv. sc. 10 (1591).
Owl. If owls screech with a hoarse and dismal voice, it bodes impending calamity. (See Owl.)
The oulê that of deth the bodê bringeth.