Whether the fasting spittle of man be poison unto Snakes and Vipers, as experience hath made us doubt? Whether the Nightingals setting with her breast against a thorn, be any more then that she placeth some prickels on the outside of her nest, or roosteth in thorny and prickly places, where Serpents may least approach her? Whether Mice may be bred by putrifaction as well as univocall production, as may be easily believed, if that receit to make Mice out of wheat will hold, which _Helmont_ hath delivered. [SN: Helm. Imago fermenti, _etc._] Whether Quails from any idiosyncracy or peculiarity of constitution, do innocuously feed upon Hellebore, or rather sometime but medically use the same; because we perceive that Stares, which are commonly said harmlessly to feed on Hemlock, do not make good the tradition; and he that observes what vertigoes, cramps and convulsions follow thereon in these animals, will be of our belief. THE FOURTH BOOK Of many popular and received Tenents concerning Man, which examined, prove either false or dubious. CHAPTER I Of the Erectness of Man. [Sidenote: _What figure in animals is properly erect._] That only _Man_ hath an Erect figure, and for to behold and look up toward heaven, according to that of the Poet, _Pronaque cum spectant animalia cætera terram, Os homini sublime dedit, cælumque tueri Jussit, et erectos ad sydera tollere vultus,_