This answer the Empress liked much better than the former, and enquired further, what opinion they had of those creatures that are called the motes of the sun? To which they answered, that they were nothing else but streams of very small, rare and transparent particles, through which the sun was represented as through a glass: for if they were not transparent, said they, they would eclipse the light of the sun; and if not rare and of an airy substance, they would hinder flies from flying in the air, at least retard their flying motion: Nevertheless, although they were thinner than the thinnest vapour, yet were they not so thin as the body of air, or else they would not be perceptible by animal sight. Then the Empress asked, whether they were living creatures? They answered, yes: Because they did increase and decrease, and were nourished by the presence, and starved by the absence of the sun.

After this, the Empress asked them, what kind of substance or creature the air was? The Bird-men answered, that they could have no other perception of the air, but by their own respiration: For, said they, some bodies are only subject to touch, others only to sight, and others only to smell; but some are subject to none of our exterior senses: For nature is so full of variety, that our weak senses cannot perceive all the various sorts of her creatures; neither is there any one object perceptible by all our senses, no more than several objects are by one sense. I believe you, replied the Empress; but if you can give no account of the air, said she, you will hardly be able to inform me how wind is made; for they say, that wind is nothing but motion of the air. The Bird-men answered, that they observed wind to be more dense than air, and therefore subject to the sense of touch; but what properly wind was, and the manner how it was made, they could not exactly tell; some said, it was caused by the clouds falling on each other; and others, that it was produced of a hot and dry exhalation: which ascending, was driven down again by the coldness of the air that is in the middle region, and by reason of its lightness, could not go directly to the bottom, but was carried by the air up and down: Some would have it a flowing water of the air; and others again, a flowing air moved by the blaze of the stars.

But the Empress, seeing they could not agree concerning the cause of wind, asked, whether they could tell how snow was made? To which they answered, that according to their observation, snow was made by a commixture of water, and some certain extract of the element of fire that is under the moon; a small portion of which extract, being mixed with water, and beaten by air or wind, made a white froth called snow; which being after some while dissolved by the heat of the same spirit, turned to water again.

This relation confirmed partly the observation of the Bird-men concerning the cause of snow; but since they had made mention that that same extract, which by its commixture with water made snow, proceeded from the element of fire, that is under the moon: The Empress asked them, of what nature that elementary fire was; whether it was like ordinary fire here upon earth, or such a fire as is within the bowels of the earth, and as the famous mountains Vesuvius and Etna do burn withal; or whether it was such a sort of fire, as is found in flints, etc. They answered, that the elementary fire, which is underneath the sun, was not so solid as any of those mentioned fires; because it had no solid fuel to feed on; but yet it was much like the flame of ordinary fire, only somewhat more thin and fluid; for flame, said they, is nothing else but the airy part of a fired body.