In n295, one of the pieces where the melody is of uncertain authorship: here is a highly profiled motive with a scalar ascent and an unusual stepwise drop after a falling fourth (circled), something that would be frowned on in a 16th century counterpoint class. It's repeated, transposed, in bar 3, then at the original level in bar 5, and finally the scale is realized as a complete ascending octave. The second strain (not shown) is unusually short: four bars of a repeated chord plus cadence. The final strain "fixes" the motive (circled) with a third rather than a fourth and moving by step within the interval. Even stronger scalar figures follow to end with an unusual, direct [Dorian] ^6-^#7-^8.
In n304 (by Praetorius himself), rising figures fill out intervals fairly quickly (C5-G5 in the first strain) or more slowly (the same interval in the second strain; a descent from G5 in the third strain). The three cadences are nearly identical, moving stepwise to the final/tonic (angled line in bar 6 of each strain), then "trilling" about it with eighth-note diminutions (bar 7). I've marked the voice exchanges to confirm that the notes on the beat in the cantus are the ground notes of the melody and the other eighth notes are the diminutions.
