scarcely be felt when the finger is put in.  And the following is an infallible sign; she is alternately in high spirits and melancholy; the monthly courses cease without any apparent cause, the evacuations from the bowels are retained unusually long, by the womb pressing on the large gut, and her desire for sexual intercourse is diminished.  The surest sign is taken from the infant, which begins to move in the womb in the third or fourth month, and not in the manner of a mole, mentioned above, from side to side like a stone, but gently, as may be perceived by applying the hand cold upon the stomach.

SIGNS TAKEN FROM THE URINE.

The best writers affirm that the water of a pregnant woman is white and has little specks in it, like those in a sunbeam, ascending and descending in it, of an opal colour, and when the sediment is disturbed by shaking the urine, it looks like carded wool.  In the middle of gestation it turns yellow, then red and lastly black, with a red film.  At night on going to bed, let her drink water and honey, and if afterwards she feels a beating pain in her stomach and about the navel, she has conceived.  Or let her take the juice of cardius, and if she brings it up again, that is a sign of conception.  Throw a clean needle into the woman’s urine, put it into a basin and let it stand all night.  If it is covered with red spots in the morning, she has conceived, but if it has turned black and rusty, she has not.

SIGNS TAKEN FROM THE SEX, TO SHOW WHETHER IT BE A MALE OR FEMALE.

If it is a male, the right breast swells first, the right eye is brighter than the left, the face is high-coloured, because the colour is such as the blood is, and as the male is conceived of purer blood and of more perfect seed than the female, red specks in the urine, and making a sediment, show that a male has been conceived, but if they are white, a female.  Put the urine of the woman into a glass bottle, let it stand tightly stoppered for two days, then strain it through a fine cloth, and you will find little animals in it.  If they are red, it is a male, but if white, it is a female.

The belly is rounder and lies higher with a boy than with a girl, and the right breast is harder and plumper than the left, and the right nipple redder, and the woman’s colour is clearer than when she has conceived a girl.

To conclude, the most certain sign to give credit to, is the motion of the child, for the male moves in the third month, and the female not until the fourth.

* * * * *

CHAPTER XIII

     Of Untimely Births.