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, [SN: _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_, [SN: _Cap. 25._] _Facta est terra in desolationem à facie iræ Columbæ_: and again, _Revertamur ad terram nativitatis nostræ à facie gladii Columbæ_. [SN: _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. [SN: _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._ It hath been propagated by Emblems: and some have been so bad Grammarians as to be deceived by the Name, deriving _Castor à castrando_, whereas the proper Latine word is _Fiber_, and _Castor_ but borrowed from the Greek, so called _quasi_ γάστωρ, that is, _Animal ventricosum_, from his swaggy and prominent belly.