Q. Why are so many beasts born blind, as lions' whelps and dogs' whelps.
A. Because such beasts are not yet of perfect ripeness and maturity, and
the course of nutriment doth not work in them. Thus the swallow, whose
eyes, if they were taken out when they are young in their nest, would
grow in again. And this is the case in many beasts who are brought forth
before their time as it were dead, as bear's whelps.
Q. Why do the eyes of a woman that hath her flowers, stain new glass?
And why doth a basilisk kill a man with his sight? A. When the flowers
do run from a woman, then a most venomous air is distilled from them,
which doth ascend into a woman's head; and she, having pain in her head,
doth wrap it up with a cloth or handkerchief; and because the eyes are
full of insensible holes, which are called pores, there the air seeketh
a passage, and infects the eyes, which are full of blood. The eyes also
appear dropping and full of tears, by reason of the evil vapour that is
in them; and these vapours are incorporated and multiplied till they
come to the glass before them; and by reason that such a glass is round,
clear and smooth, it doth easily receive that which is unclean. 2. The
basilisk is a very venomous and infectious animal, and there pass from
his eyes vapours which are multiplied upon the thing which is seen by
him, and even unto the eye of man; the which venomous vapours or humours
entering into the body, do infect him, and so in the end the man dieth.
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