Q. Why are lepers hoarse?  A. Because the vocal instruments are corrupted, that is, the lights.

Q. Why do persons become hoarse?  A. Because of the rheum descending from the brain, filling the conduit of the lights; and sometimes through imposthumes of the throat, or rheum gathering in the neck.

Q. Why have the females of all living creatures the shrillest voices, the crow only excepted, and a woman a shriller and smaller voice than a man?  A. By reason of the composition of the veins and vocal arteries the voice is formed, as appears by this similitude, that a small pipe sounds shriller than a great.  Also in women, because the passage where the voice is formed is made narrow and strait, by reason of cold, it being the nature of cold to bind; but in men, the passage is open and wider through heat, because it is the property of heat to open and dissolve.  It proceedeth in women through the moistness of the lungs, and weakness of the heat.  Young and diseased men have sharp and shrill voices from the same cause.

Q. Why doth the voice change in men at fourteen, and in women at twelve; in men they begin to yield seed, in women when their breasts begin to grow?  A. Because then the beginning of the voice is slackened and loosened; and this is proved by the similitude of the string of an instrument let down or loosened, which gives a great sound, and also because creatures that are gelded, as eunuchs, capons., etc., have softer and slenderer voices than others, by the want of their stones.

Q. Why do small birds sing more and louder than great ones, as appears in the lark and nightingale?  A. Because the spirits of small birds are subtle and soft, and the organ conduit strait, as appeareth in a pipe; therefore their notes following easily at desire, they sing very soft.

Q. Why do bees, wasps, locusts and many other such like insects, make a noise, seeing they have no lungs, nor instruments of music?  A. Because in them there is a certain small skin, which, when struck by the air, causeth a sound.

Q. Why do not fish make a sound?  A. Because they have no lungs, but only gills, nor yet a heart, and therefore they need not the drawing in of the air, and by consequence they make no noise, because a voice is a percussion of the air which is drawing.

Of the Neck.

Q. Why hath a living creature a neck?  A. Because the neck is the supporter of the head, and therefore the neck is in the middle between the head and the body, to the intent that by it, and by its sinews, motion and sense of the body might be conveyed through all the body; and that by means of the neck, the heart, which is very hot, might be separated from the brain.

Q. Why do some creatures want necks, as serpents and fishes?  A. Because they want hearts, and therefore want that assistance which we have spoken of; or else they have a neck in some inward part of them, which is not distinguished outwardly.