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.