[2621] This is still the vulgar notion; but in reality there is no worm, but certain white pustules beneath the tongue, which break spontaneously at the end of twelve days after birth. Puppies are still “wormed,” as it is called, as a preventive of hydrophobia, it is said, and of a propensity to gnaw objects which come in their way. The “worming” consists in the breaking of these pustules.
[2622] “Rage” or “madness.”
[2623] “For the manner of a dog is to bee angrie with the stone that is thrown at him, without regard to the partie that flung it, whereupon grew the proverb in Greeke, κύων εἰς τὸν λίθον ἀγανακτοῦσα (‘A dog venting his rage upon a stone.’)”—Holland.
[2624] See B. xx. cc. 6, 20. It is somewhat doubtful what the “seps” really was; whether, in fact, it was a lizard at all. Littré suggests the Tridactylus saurius.
[2625] Or Ferret, probably. See c. 16 of this Book.
[2626] In c. 16 of this Book.
[2627] From the circumstance that that country was covered with herbs and plants of a medicinal nature.
[2628] So called from ἀλωπὴξ, “a fox,” an animal very subject to the loss of its hair.
[2629] See B. xii. c. 51.
[2630] So swine’s dung was called “sucerda,” and cowdung “bucerda.”