Now the number of five is remarkable in every Circle, not only as the first sphærical Number, but the measure of sphærical motion. For sphærical bodies move by fives, and every globular Figure placed upon a plane, in direct volutation, returns to the first point of contaction in the fift touch, accounting by the Axes of the Diameters or Cardinall points of the four quarters thereof. And before it arriveth unto the same point again, it maketh five circles equall unto it self, in each progresse from those quarters, absolving an equall circle.
By the same number doth nature divide the circle of the Sea-starre, and in that order and number disposeth those elegant Semi-circles, or dentall sockets and egges in the Sea Hedge-hogge. And no mean Observations hereof there is in the Mathematicks of the neatest Retiary Spider, which concluding in fourty four Circles, from five Semidiameters beginneth that elegant texture.
And after this manner doth lay the foundation of the Circular branches of the Oak, which being five-cornered, in the tender annual sprouts, and manifesting upon incision the signature of a Starre, is after made circular, and swel'd into a round body: Which practice of nature is become a point of art, and makes two Problemes in _Euclide_.[156] But the Bryar which sends forth shoots and prickles from its angles, maintains its pentagonall figure, and the unobserved signature of a handsome porch within it. To omit the five small buttons dividing the Circle of the Ivy-berry, and the five characters in the Winter stalk of the Walnut, with many other Observables, which cannot escape the eyes of signal discerners; Such as know where to finde _Ajax_ his name in _Gallitricum_, or _Arons_ Mitre in Henbane.
Quincuncial forms and ordinations are also observable in animal figurations. For to omit the hioides or throat bone of animals, the _furcula_ or _merry-thought_ in birds; which supporteth the _scapulæ_, affording a passage for the winde-pipe and the gullet, the wings of Flyes, and disposure of their legges in their first formation from maggots, and the position of their horns, wings and legges, in their _Aurelian_ cases and swadling clouts: The back of the _Cimex Arboreus_, found often upon Trees and lesser plants, doth elegantly discover the _Burgundian_ decussation; And the like is observable in the belly of the _Notonecton_, or water-Beetle, which swimmeth on its back, and the handsome Rhombusses of the Sea-poult, or Weazell, on either side the Spine.