CHAP. XX. Of the wonderfull originall, or breeding of some creatures.
WEE have read in Boistey, that a certaine workeman of Avignion, when as hee lived in that city, opened a leaden coffin, wherein a dead bo∣dy * 1.1 lay, that was so closely soudered, that the aire could not get in; and as he opened it, he was bitten by a serpent that lay therein, with so vene∣mous and deadly a bite, that it had neere to have cost him his life. Yet the originall of this creature is not so prodigious as hee supposeth, for it is an usuall * 1.2 thing for a Serpent to breed of any putrefyed carcasse, but chiefly of a mans.
Baptista Leo writes, that in the time of Pope Martin the fift, there was a live ser∣pent found enclosed in a vaste, but solid Marble, no chinke appearing in such dense solidity, whereby this living creature might breath.
Whilest in my vine-yard, that is at Meudon, I caused certain huge stones to be bro∣ken to pieces, a Toad was found in the midst of one of them. When as I much ad∣mired thereat, because there was no space wherein this creature could be generated, encrease or live, the Stone-cutter wished mee not to marvaile thereat, for it was a common thing, and that he saw it almost every day. Certainly it may come to passe that from the more moist portion of stones, contained in places moist and under * 1.3 ground, and the celestiall heat mixing and diffusing it selfe over the whole masse of the world, the matter may be animated for the generation of these creatures.