fleak

The uſes indeed of the forenamed Plants are ſo univerſall, and take place ſo in every affaire of Man, that if it vvere lavvfull to be a little merry in ſo ſerious a matter, a man might not unfittingly apply that verſe of the Poet [Ovid, Epistulae ex Ponto (Letters from the Black Sea), book IV, 3-35] to this ſo generall a commodity; / Omnia ſunt homini tenui pendentia filo. / That all the buſineſſes of Men do very much depend upon theſe little long fleaks or threds of Hempe and Flaxa.

Plutarke alſo calleth this beaſt a meticulous and fearefull beaſt, and in this cauſe concludeth the change of his colour, not as ſome ſay, to auoyde and deceiue the beholders and to vvorke out his ovvne happineuſſe, but for meere dread and terrour. […] But I for my part doe aſſigne the true cauſe to bee in the thinneſſe of their skinne, and therefore may eaſily take impreſſion of any colour, like to a thin fleake of a horne, vvhich being layde ouer blacke, ſeemeth blacke, and ſo ouer other colours: […]

Upon Examination, I found that they [the fat] conſiſted of regular large Laminæ: vvhich vvere eaſily ſeparable from one another, in broad Fleaks; […]