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The work assembles systematic observations on animals, insects, and trees, combining natural history with practical notes. It surveys insect forms and habits, including bees, silk‑producing worms, spiders, and parasitic species, and discusses reproduction, classification, diseases, and useful products like honey and silk. It then examines animal anatomy in detail, limb by limb and organ by organ, comparing organs, vital functions, and bodily peculiarities across species. Later sections catalogue trees and exotic plants, describing aromatic gums, spices, frankincense, myrrh, and methods for producing and testing unguents and perfumes, and noting their uses and regions of origin.
It is a peculiarity of wine, among the liquids, to become mouldy, or else to turn to vinegar. There are whole volumes which treat of the various methods of preventing this.
The lees of wine when dried will take fire and burn without the addition of fuel: the ashes so produced have very much the nature of nitre,1537 and similar virtues; the more so, indeed, the more unctuous they are to the touch.