9. To sit cross leg'd, or with our fingers pectinated or shut together, is accounted bad, and friends will perswade us from it. The same conceit religiously possessed the Ancients, as is observable from _Pliny_. _Poplites alternis genibus imponere nefas olim_; and also from _Athenæus_, that it was an old veneficious practice, and _Juno_ is made in this posture to hinder the delivery of _Alcmena_. And therefore, as _Pierius_ observeth, in the Medal of _Julia Pia_, the right hand of _Venus_ was made extended with the inscription of _Venus, Genetrix_; for the complication or pectination of the fingers was an Hieroglyphick of impediment, as in that place he declareth. 10. The set and statary times of pairing of nails, and cutting of hair, is thought by many a point of consideration; which is perhaps but the continuation of an ancient superstition. For piaculous it was unto the _Romans_ to pare their nails upon the Nundinæ, observed every ninth day; and was also feared by others in certain daies of the week; according to that of _Ausonius_, _Ungues Mercurio_, _Barbam Jove_, _Cypride Crines_; and was one part of the wickedness that filled up the measure of _Manasses_, when 'tis delivered that he observed times. [SN: 2 Chron. 33.] 11. A common fashion it is to nourish hair upon the mouls of the face; which is the perpetuation of a very ancient custom; and though innocently practised among us, may have a superstitious original, according to that of _Pliny_, _Nævos in facie tondere religiosum habent nunc multi._ From the like might proceed the fears of poling Elvelocks or complicated hairs of the head, and also of locks longer than the other hair; they being votary at first, and dedicated upon occasion; preserved with great care, and accordingly esteemed by others, as appears by that of _Apuleius, Adjuro per dulcem capilli tui nodulum._ 12. A custom there is in most parts of _Europe_ to adorn Aqueducts, spouts and Cisterns with Lions heads: which though no illaudable ornament, is of an _Egyptian_ genealogy,[8] who practised the same under a symbolical illation. For because the Sun being in Leo, the flood of _Nilus_ was at the full, and water became conveyed into every part, they made the spouts of their Aqueducts through the head of a Lion. And upon some cœlestial respects it is not improbable the great Mogul or _Indian_ King doth bear for his Arms a Lion and the Sun. [8] geneologie, 1658, 1669, geneology, 1672. [Sidenote: _Symbolical significations of the girdle._]