The occasion of this conceit might be an Ægyptian tradition concerning the Bird _Ibis_: which after became transferred unto Cocks. For an opinion it was of that Nation, that the _Ibis_ feeding upon Serpents, that venomous food so inquinated their oval conceptions, or eggs within their bodies, that they sometimes came forth in Serpentine shapes, and therefore they always brake their eggs, nor would they endure the Bird to sit upon them. But how causeless their fear was herein, the daily incubation of Ducks, Pea-hens, and many other testifie, and the Stork might have informed them; which Bird they honoured and cherished, to destroy their Serpents. That which much promoted it, was a misapprehension of holy Scripture upon the Latine translation in _Esa._ 51, _Ova aspidum ruperunt et telas Arenearum texuerunt, qui comedent de ovis corum morietur, et quod confotum est, erumpet in Regulum_. From whence notwithstanding, beside the generation of Serpents from eggs, there can be nothing concluded; and what kind of Serpents are meant, not easie to be determined, for Translations are here very different: _Tremellius_ rendering the Asp Hæmorrhous, and the Regulus or Basilisk a Viper, and our translation for the Asp sets down a Cockatrice in the Text, and an Adder in the margin. Another place of _Esay_ doth also seem to countenance it, Chap. 14. _Ne læteris Philistæa quoniam diminuta est virga percussoris tui, de radice enim colubri egredietur Regulus, et semen ejus absorbens volucrem_, which ours somewhat favourably rendereth: _Out of the Serpents Root shall come forth a Cockatrice, and his fruit shall be a fiery flying Serpent_. But _Tremellius_, _è radice Serpentis prodit Hæmorrhous, et fructus illius præster volans_; wherein the words are different, but the sense is still the same; for therein are figuratively intended _Uzziah_ and _Ezechias_; for though the Philistines had escaped the minor Serpent _Uzziah_, yet from his stock a fiercer Snake should arise, that would more terribly sting them, and that was _Ezeckias_. But the greatest promotion it hath received from a misunderstanding of the Hieroglyphical intention. For being conceived to be the Lord and King of Serpents, to aw all others, nor to be destroyed _by any_; the Ægyptians hereby implied Eternity, and the awful power of the supreme Deitie: and therefore described a crowned Asp or Basilisk upon the heads of their gods. As may be observed in the Bembine Table, and other Ægyptian Monuments. CHAPTER VIII Of the Wolf. Such a Story as the Basilisk is that of the Wolf concerning priority of vision, that a man becomes hoarse or dumb, if a Wolf have the advantage first to eye him. And this is a plain language affirmed by _Plyny_: _In Italia ut creditur, Luporum visus est noxius, vocemque homini, quem prius contemplatur adimere_; so is it made out what is delivered by _Theocritus_, and after him by _Virgil_: