Q. Why do women easily miscarry when they are first with child, viz. the first, second, or third month? A. As apples and pears easily fall at first, because the knots or ligaments are weak, so it is with a child in the womb.
Q. Why is it hard to miscarry in the third, fourth, fifth, or sixth months? A. Because the ligaments are stronger and well fortified.
Of Divers Matters.
Q. Why has not a man a tail like a beast? A. Because a man is a noble creature, whose property it is to sit; which a beast, having a tail, cannot.
Q. Why does hot water freeze sooner than cold? A. Hot water is thinner, and gives better entrance to the frost.
Q. Why cannot drunken men judge of taste as well as sober men? A. Because the tongue being full of pores and spongy, receives great moisture into it, and more in drunken men than in sober; therefore the tongue, through often drinking, is full of bad humours; and so the faculty of tasting is rendered out of order: also, through the thickening of the taste itself, drink taken by drunkards is not presently felt. And by this may be also understood why drunkards have not a perfect speech.
Q. Why have melancholy beasts long ears? A. The ears proceed from a cold and dry substance, called a gristle, which is apt to become bone; and because melancholy beasts do abound with this kind of substance, they have long ears.
Q. Why do hares sleep with their eyes open? A. 1. They have their eyes standing out, and their eye-lids short, therefore never quite shut. 2. They are timorous, and, as a safeguard to themselves, sleep with their eyes open.
Q. Why do not crows feed their young till they be nine days old? A. Because seeing them of another colour, they think they are of another kind.
Q. Why are sheep and pigeons mild? A. They want gall, the cause of anger.