As for the musical advantage, although it seem more reasonable, yet do we not observe that Cranes and birds of long necks have any musical, but harsh and clangous throats. But birds that are canorous, and whose notes we most commend, are of little throats and short necks, as Nightingales, Finches, Linnets, Canary birds and Larks. And truly, although the weazon, throtle and tongue be the instruments of voice, and by their agitations do chiefly concurr unto these delightfull modulations, yet cannot we distinctly and peculiarly assign the cause unto any particular formation; and I perceive the best thereof, the nightingale, hath some disadvantage in the tongue; which is not accuminate and pointed as in the rest, but seemeth as it were cut off, which perhaps might give the hint unto the fable of _Philomela_, and the cutting off her tongue by _Tereus_. CHAPTER XV Of the Lake Asphaltites. Concerning the Lake _Asphaltites_, the Lake of _Sodom_, or the dead Sea, that heavy bodies cast therein sink not, but by reason of a salt and bituminous thickness in the water float and swim above, narrations already made are of that variety, we can hardly from thence deduce a satisfactory determination; and that not only in the story it self, but in the cause alledged. As for the story, men deliver it variously: some I fear too largely, as _Pliny_, who affirmeth that bricks will swim therein. _Mandevil_ goeth farther, that Iron swimmeth, and feathers sink. _Munster_ in his Cosmography hath another relation, although perhaps derived from the Poem of _Tertullian,_ that a candle Burning swimmeth, but if extinguished sinketh. Some more moderately, as _Josephus_, and many others: affirming only that living bodies float, nor peremptorily averring they cannot sink, but that indeed they do not easily descend. Most traditionally, as _Galen_, _Pliny_, _Solinus_ and _Strabo_, who seems to mistake the Lake _Serbonis_ for it. Few experimentally, most contenting themselves in the experiment of _Vespasian_, by whose command some captives bound were cast therein, and found to float as though they could have swimmed: divers contradictorily, or contrarily, quite overthrowing the point. _Aristotle_ in the second of his Meteors speaks lightly thereof, ὥσπερ μυθολογοῦσι, which word is variously rendred, by some as a fabulous account, by some as a common talk. _Biddulphus_ divideth the common accounts of _Judea_ in three parts, the one saith he, are apparent Truths, the second apparent falshoods, the third are dubious or between both; in which form he ranketh the relation of this Lake.[SN: Biddulphi intinerarium Anglice.] But _Andrew Thevet_ in his Cosmography doth ocularly overthrow it; for he affirmeth, he saw an Ass with his Saddle cast therein and drowned. Now of these relations so different or contrary unto each other, the second is most moderate and safest to be embraced, which saith, that living bodies swim therein, that is, they do