Lastly, it is repugnant to experience, for Anatomical enquiry discovereth in them a gall: and that according to the determination of Aristotle, not annexed unto the liver, but adhering unto the guts: nor is the humour contained in smaller veins, or obscurer capillations, but in a vescicle, or little bladder, though some affirm it hath no bag at all. And therefore the Hieroglyphick of the Ægyptians, though allowable in the sense, is weak in the foundation: who expressing meekness and lenity by the portract of a Dove with a tail erected, affirmed it had no gall in the inward parts, but only in the rump, and as it were out of the body. And therefore also if they conceived their gods were pleased with the sacrifice of this Animal, as being without gall, the ancient Heathens were surely mistaken in the reason, and in the very oblation. Whereas in the holocaust or burnt offering of Moses, the gall was cast away: for as Ben Maimon instructeth Levit. 1., the inwards whereto the gall adhereth were taken out with the crop, according unto the Law: which the Priest did not burn, but cast unto the East, that is, behind his back, and readiest place to be carried out of the Sanctuary. Doves, the Birds of Venus, why? And if they also conceived that for this reason they were the Birds of Venus, and wanting the furious and discording part, were more acceptable unto the Deity of Love, they surely added unto the conceit, which was at first venereal: and in this Animal may be sufficiently made out from that conception.
The ground of this conceit is partly like the former, the obscure situation of the gall, and out of the liver, wherein it is commonly enquired. But this is a very injust illation, not well considering with what variety this part is seated in Birds. In some both at the stomach and the liver, as in the Capriceps; in some at the liver only, as in Cocks, Turkeys, and Pheasants; in others at the guts and liver, as in Hawks and Kites, in some at the guts alone, as Crows, Doves, and many more. And these perhaps may take up all the ways of situation, not only in Birds, but also other Animals; for what is said of the Anchovie,Ἐγκρασίχολος. that answerable unto its name, it carrieth the gall in the head, is farther to be enquired. And though the discoloured particles in the skin of an Heron be commonly termed Galls, yet is not this Animal deficient in that part, but containeth it in the Liver. And thus when it is conceived that the eyes of Tobias were cured by the gall of the fish Callyonimus, or Scorpius marinus, commended to that effect by Dioscorides, although that part were not in the liver, yet there were no reason to doubt that probability. And whatsoever Animal it was, it may be received without exception, when it's delivered, the married couple as a testimony of future concord, did cast the gall of the sacrifice behind the Altar.
A strict and literal acception of a loose and tropical expression was a second ground hereof. For while some affirmed it had no gall, intending only thereby no evidence of anger or fury; others have construed it anatomically, and denied that part at all. By which illation we may infer, and that from sacred Text, a Pigeon hath no heart; according to that expression, Hosea 7. Factus est Ephraim sicut Columba seducta non habens Cor. And so from the letter of the Scripture we may conclude it is no mild, but a fiery and furious animal, according to that of Jeremy, Cap. 25. Facta est terra in desolationem à facie iræ Columbæ: and again, Revertamur ad terram nativitatis nostræ à facie gladii Columbæ. Cap. 46. Where notwithstanding the Dove is not literally intended; but thereby may be implied the Babylonians, whose Queen Semiramis was called by that name, and whose successors did bear the Dove in their Standard. So is it proverbially said, Formicæ sua bilis inest, habet et musca splenem; whereas we know Philosophy doubteth these parts, nor hath Anatomy so clearly discovered them in those insects.
If therefore any affirm a Pigeon hath no gall, implying no more thereby then the lenity of this Animal, we shall not controvert his affirmation. Thus may we make out the assertions of Ancient Writers, and safely receive the expressions of Divines and worthy Fathers. But if by a transition from Rhetorick to Logick, he shall contend, it hath no such part or humour, he committeth an open fallacy, and such as was probably first committed concerning Spanish Mares, whose swiftness tropically expressed from their generation by the wind; might after be grosly taken, and a real truth conceived in that conception.
[CHAPTER IV]
Of the Bever.
That a Bever to escape the Hunter, bites off his testicles or stones, is a Tenet very ancient; and hath had thereby advantage of propagation. Æsops Apologues, of what antiquity. For the same we find in the Hieroglyphicks of the Egyptians in the Apologue of Æsop, an Author of great Antiquity, who lived in the beginning of the Persian Monarchy, and in the time of Cyrus: the same is touched by Aristotle in his Ethicks, but seriously delivered by Ælian, Pliny, and Solinus: the same we meet with in Juvenal, who by an handsome and Metrical expression more welcomly engrafts it in our junior Memories:
——imitatus Castora, qui se
Eunuchum ipse facit, cupiens evadere damno
Testiculorum, adeo medicatum intelligit inguen.