or of Man. And such is that Creature which, though it be Exotick, yet is ordinarily known by the name of a Camel: For why are those bunches on his back, but that they may be in stead of a Pack-saddle to receive the burthen? and why has he four knees, and his hinder Legs bending inwards, as also a Protruberancy under his Breast to lean on, but that, being a tall Creature, he might with ease kneel down, and so might the more gainly be loaden?
But Cardan will by no means have this the design of Nature, but that this frame of the Camel's body is thus made for his own convenience: For he being a Creature that lives and seeks his food in waste and dry Desarts, those Bunches he would have Receptacles of redundant Moisture, from whence the rest of his body is to be supply'd in a hard and tedious time of drought; and that his Legs being very long, he ought to have Knees behind and a knob, beneath, to rest his weary limbs in the wilderness, by sitting or kneeling in that posture he does; for he could not so conveniently lie along, as the Horse, or Ass, or other Creatures. But I should not determine this to either alone, but take in both Causes, and acknowledge therein a richer design of Providence, that by this Frame and Artifice has gratifi'd both the Camel and his Master.
Chap. XI.
1. Some general Observables concerning Birds. 2. Of the Cock. 3. Of the Turkey-Cock. 4. Of the Swan, Hern, and other Water-foul. 5. Of the γαμψώνυχα and πληκτροφόρα, and of the peculiarity of Sight in Birds of prey. 6. The Description of the Bird of Paradise according to Cardan. 7. The suffrages of Scaliger, Hernandes and Nierembergius. 8. Aldrovandus his Objections against her seeding on the dew onely, with what they might probably answer thereto. 9. His Objections against her manner of Incubiture, with the like Answer. 10. What Properties they are all five agreed on. 11. In what Pighafetta and Clusius dissent from them all, with the Author's conditional inclination to their judgment. 12. The main Remarkables in the story of the Bird of Paradise. 13. A supply from ordinary & known Examples as convictive or more convictive of a discerning Providence.
1. We pass on now to the consideration of Fowls or Birds. Where omitting the more general Properties, of having two Ventricles, and picking up stones to conveigh them into their second Ventricle, the Gizzern, (which provision and instinct is a supply for the want of teeth;) as also their having no Paps as Beasts have, their young ones being nourished so long in the Shell, that they are presently fit to be fed by the mouthes of the old ones, and unfit to suck by reason of the shape and hardness of their Bills: (which Observations plainly signifie that Nature does nothing ineptly and foolishly, and that therefore there is a
