Q. Why is it hard to miscarry in the third, fourth, fifth and sixth month?  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 man is a noble creature, whose property 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 is every living creature dull after copulation?  A. By reason that the act is filthy and unclean; and so every living creature abhors it.  When men do think upon it, they are ashamed and sad.

Q. Why cannot drunken men judge of taste as well as sober men?  A. Because the tongue, being full of pores and spongy, receives more 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 also be understood why drunkards have not a perfect speech.

Q. Why have melancholy beasts long ears?  A. The ears proceed from a dry and cold substance, called 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 eyelids short, therefore, never quite shut. 2.  They are timorous, and as a safe-guard 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 galls, the cause of anger.

Q. Why have birds their stones inward?  A. Because if outward, they would hinder their flying and lightness.

Q. How comes it that birds do not piss?  A. Because that superfluity which would be converted into urine, is turned into feathers.

Q. Why do we hear better in the night than by day?  A. Because there is a greater quietness in the night than in the day, for the sun doth not exhale the vapours by night, but it doth in the day, therefore the moon is more fit than in the day; and the moon being fit, the motion is better received, which is said to be caused by a sound.

Q. For what reason doth a man laugh sooner when touched in the armpits than in any other part of the body?  A. Because there is in that place a meeting of many sinews, and the mean we touch, which is the flesh, is more subtle than in other parts, and therefore of finer feeling.  When a man is moderately and gently touched there the spirits that are dispersed run into the face and causes laughter.

Q. Why do some women love white men and some black men?  A. 1.  Some have weak sight, and such delight in black, because white doth hurt the sight more than black. 2.  Because like delight in like; but some women are of a hot nature, and such are delighted with black, because blackness followeth heat; and others are of a cold nature, and those are delighted with white, because cold produces white.