Of the (generation of Animals, 27

ter mixt with rr-«-h; and the colder and fouler the water was, theunfitterit was fortheir generation, Diodorus , and many other good Philosophers hold, that all livingCreatures did arise of putrefaction. For whereas in the beginning of the world,the Heavens, and Earth, and Elements were fetied in their natural places* the earthbeing left slimy and l'ott in many places, and then dried and stricken with the heacof the Sun, brought forth certain tumors and lwellings in the surface and upper-most parts: in these tumors were contained and cherished many putrefactions androtten clods, covered over with certain small skins; this putrified stuff, beingmoistened with dew by night, and the Sunheating it by day, after a certain lealonbecame ripe ; and the skins being broken, thence issued all kinds of living Crea-tures ; whereof, they that had quickest heat, became birds; the earthy ones be-came creeping beasts; the watertfh ones became fishes in the Sea; and theywhich were a mean, as it were, betwixt all these , became walking-^reatures. Butthe heat of the Sun still working upon the earth, hindered it from begettingand bringing forth any more sufch creatures; but then,the creatures before generatedcoupled together,and brought forth others like themselves. Avicenna^ in that workof his which he made of deluges and flouds ; holds, that after the greatflouds thatdrowned the Earth, there was no mans feed; but then, man, and all living Crea-tures else, were generated of rotten carcases, only by the venue of the Sun : andtherefore he supposeth, that the womb, and such needful places framed by nature,for the better fashioning of the infant, are not necdfull to the procreation of man.He proves his assertion by this, that mice, which arise of putrefaction, do coupletogether , and beget store of young. yea, and serpents are generated chiefly ofwomanshair. And in his book of living Creatures, he tcls of a friend of his,that brought forth Scorpions after a strange manner, and those did beget otherScorpions, not imperfect, or unlike to themselves, but such as did also procreateothers. Averroes held,that the stars were sufficient to generate imperfect creatures;as mice, bats, moules.aod such like, but not to generate Men, or Lions. And dai-ly experience teacheth us, that many living creatures ccme of the putrified matter ofthe earth. And the Ancients supposing all things to be produced out of the earth,cal-led it the mother of all; and the Greeks called it Dimitera. Ovid hath very ele-gantly set down this generation of putrefaction, under the fable of Pytho ; (hatthe earth brought forth of itr own accord, many living creatures of divers forms,the heat of the Sun enliving those moistures that lay in the tumors of the earth, likefertile feeds in the belly of their mother; for heat and moisture being tempered to-gether , caufeth generation. So then , after the deluge , the earth being nowmoist, the Sun working upon it, divers kinds of creatures were brought forth, semelike the former, and some of a new shape.

C H A P. II.

Of certain earthly £reatttref> which are generated esfutrefMien.

P Lants and living Creatures agree both in this, that seme of them are generatedof feed, and some of them Nature brings forth of her own accord, withoutany . feed of the seine kindseme cut of putrified earth and plants, as thoseCreatures that are divided between the head and the belly ; feme out of thedew that lies upon leaves, as Canket-woims; seme cut of the mud, as fhel-ereatures. and seme out of living Creatures themselves, and the excrements? l |j CIr P 4rts > as lice. We will onely rehearse some which the Ancients have, d ° wn J that jib we may also learn how to procreate new creatures. And first,

let us fee, how

1

G z

Mice