nate, then it is like the mother; but if he be like
neither, that doth sometimes happen through the four qualities,
sometimes through the influence of some heavenly constellation.

Q. Why are children oftener like the father than the mother? A. It
proceeds from the imagination of the mother in the act of copulation, as
appeared in a queen who had her imagination on a blackamoor; and in the
Ethiopian queen who brought forth a white child, because her imagination
was upon a white colour; as is seen in Jacob's skill in casting rods of
divers colours into the water, when his sheep went to ram.

Q. Why do children born in the eighth month for the most part die
quickly, and why are they called the children of the moon? A. Because
the moon is a cold planet, which has dominion over the child, and
therefore doth bind it with coldness, which is the cause of its death.

Q. Why doth a child cry as soon as it is born? A. Because of the sudden
change from heat to cold: which cold doth affect its tenderness. Another
reason is, because the child's soft and tender body is wringed and put
together coming out of the narrow and strait passage of the matrix, and
especially, the brain being moist, and the head being pressed and
wrinkled together, is the cause that some humours distil by the eyes,
which are the cause of tears and weeping.

Q. Why doth the child put its fingers into its mouth as soon as it
cometh into the world? A. Because that coming out of the womb it cometh
out of a hot bath, and entering into the cold, puts them into its mouth
for want of heat.

_Of the Child in the Womb._

Q. How is the child engendered in the womb? A. The first six days the
seed hath this colour of milk, but in the six following a red colour,
which is near unto the disposition of the flesh; and then it is changed
into a thick substance of blood. But in the twelve days following, this
substance becomes so thick and round that it is capable of receiving
shape and form.

Q. Doth the child in the womb void excrements or make water? No. Because
it hath not the first digestion which is in the stomach. It receives no
food by the mouth, but by the navel; therefore, makes no urine but
sweats, which is but little, and is received in a skin in the matrix,
which at the birth is cast out.

_Of Abortion and Untimely Birth._

Q. Why do women that eat unwholesome meats, easily miscarry? A. Because
they breed putrefied seed, which the mind abhorring dot