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NOTE TO BARNACLES.

(1) Mr. Steevens (see Reed's edition of Shakspeare's Works, vol. iv. p. 146) has favoured us with some curious extracts on this head. The first is from Hall's " Virgidemiarum," lib. iv. Sat. 2 :

"The Scottish Barnacle, if I might choose,
That of a worme doth
Goose."

"Like your Scotch Barnacle, now a block,

Instantly a worm, and presently a great
Goose."

grow

"There are (says Gerard, in his " Herbal," edit. 1597, p. 1391) in the north parts of Scotland certaine trees, whereon do waxe a winged shellfishes, &c. &c., which falling into the water, do become fowls, whom we call Barnacles; in the north of England Brant Geese; and in Lancashire Tree Geese, &c."

So likewise Marston, in his " Malecontent,” 1604:

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NOTE TO DOREE.

(1) His history is in his name, Xgsoogos, being said to have carried our Saviour, when a child, over an arm of the sea.

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THAT BEARS FORM THEIR CUBS INTO SHAPE BY LICKING THEM.

"IN Natural History, I shall here gainsay that gross opinion, that the Whelps of Bears are, at first littering, without all form or fashion, and nothing but a little congealed blood, or lump of flesh, which afterwards the dam shapeth by licking, yet is the truth most

evidently otherwise, as by the eye-witness of Joachimus Rheticus, Gesner, and others it hath been proved. And herein, as in many other fabulous narrations of this nature (in which experience checks report) may be justly put that of Lucretius,

'Quid nobis certius ipsis Sensibus esse potest? qui vera ac falsa notemus?'

What can more certain be than sense
Discerning truth from false pretence?"

A Brief Natural History, &c., with Re-
futations of Vulgar Errours, by Eu-
genius Philalethes, Evo. Lond. 1669,
p. 87.

Sir Thomas Browne places this among his "Vulgar Errors;" but Alexander Ross, in bis "Refutation of Dr. Browne's Vulgar Errors," at the end of his Arcana Microcosmi, 8vo. Lond. 1652, p. 115, affirms that "the Bears

send forth their young ones deformed and unshaped to the sight, by reason of the thick membran in which they are wrapt, which also is covered over with so mucous and flegmatick matter, which the dam contracts in the winter time, lying in hollow caves, without motion, that to the eye it looks like an unformed lump. This mucosity is licked away by the dam, and the membran broken; and so that which before seemed to be informed, appears now in its right shape. This is all that the ancients meant, as appears by Aristotle (Animal. lib. vi. c. 31), who says that, in some manner, the young Bear is for a while rude and without shape."

OSTRICHES EATING AND DIGESTING IRON.

ALEXANDER Ross, in the work just quoted, p. 141, says: " But Dr. Browne denies this for these reasons (book iii. c. 22,) because Aristotle and Oppian are silent in this singularity. 2. Pliny speaketh of its wonderful digestion. 3. Ælian mentions not iron. 4. Leo Africanus speaks diminutively. 5. Fernelius extenuates it, and Riolanus denies it. 6. Albertus Magnus refutes it. 7. Aldrovandus saw an Ostrich swallow iron, which excluded it again undigested.

"Answ. Aristotle's, Oppian's, and Ælian's silence are of no force; for arguments taken from a negative authority were never held of any validity. Many things are omitted by them which yet are true. It is sufficient that

we have eye-witnesses to confirm this truth. As for Pliny, he saith plainly that it concocteth whatsoever it eateth. Now the Doctor acknowledgeth it eats iron; ergo, according to Pliny, it concocts iron. Africanus tells us that it devours iron. And Fernelius is so far from extenuating the matter, that he plainly affirms it, and shows that this concoction is performed by the nature of its whole essence. As for Riolanus, his denial without ground we regard not. Albertus Magnus speaks not of iron, but of stones which it swallows, and excludes again without nutriment. As for Aldrovandus, I deny not but he might see one Ostrich which excluded his iron undigested; but one swallow makes no summer.”

THE PHOENIX.

SIR THOMAS BROWNE tells us: "that there is but one Phoenix in the world, which after many hundred years burns herself, and from the ashes thereof riseth up another, is a conceit not new or altogether popular, but of great antiquity; not only delivered by humane authors, but frequently expressed by holy writers; by Cyril, Epiphanius, and others,

by Ambrose in his 'Hexameron,' and Tertullian in his poem 'de Judicio Domini,' and in his excellent tract de Resurrectione Carnis,' -all which notwithstanding we cannot presume the existence of this animal, nor dare we affirm there is any Phoenix in nature. For first there wants herein the definitive confirmator and test of things uncertain, that is, the

sense of man. For though many writers have much enlarged thereon, there is not any ocular describer, or such as presumeth to confirm it upon aspection; and therefore Herodotus, that led the story unto the Greeks, plainly saith, he never attained the sight of any, but only the picture." The learned author proceeds to make Herodotus himself confess that the account seems to him improbable; as also Tacitus and Pliny expressing very strong doubts

on the subject. Some, he says, refer to some other rare bird, the bird of Paradise, &c. He finds the passage in the Psalms, "Vir justus ut Phoenix florebat," a mistake arising from the Greek word Phoenix, which signifies also a palm tree. By the same equivoque he explains the passage in Job where it is mentioned. În a word, the unity, long life, and generation of this ideal bird, are all against the existence of it.

BIRD OF PARADISE.

IN a curious little book entitled "A short Relation of the River Nile," &c., 12mo. Lond. 1673, edited by the Royal Society, at p. 27 we read: "The Unicorn is the most celebrated among beasts, as among birds are the Phoenix, the PELLICAN, and the BIRD OF PADISE; with which the world is better acquainted by the fancies of preachers and poets, than with their native soyle. Little knowledge is of any of them; for some of them, nothing but the received report of their being in nature. It deserves reflection, that the industry and indefatigable labour of men in the discovery of things concealed can yet give no account where the Phoenix and Bird of Paradise are bred. Some would have Arabia the country of the Phoenix, yet are the Arabians without any knowledge of it, and leave the discovery to the work of time. The Bird of Paradise is found dead with her bill fixed in the ground, in an island joyning to the Maluccos not far from Macaca; whence it comes thither, unknown, though great diligence hath been imployed in the search, but without success. One of them dead came to my hands. I have seen many. The tayl is worn by children for a penashe, the feathers fine and subtile as a very thin cloud. The body not fleshy, resembling that of a thrush.

The

many and long feathers (of a pale invivid colour, nearer white than ash colour) which cover it, make it of great beauty. Report says of these birds, that they alwaies fly, from

PELICAN.

their birth to their death, not discovered to have any feet. They live by flyes they catch in the ayr, where, their diet being slender, they take some little repose. They fly very high, and come falling down with their wings displayed. As to their generation, nature is said to have made a hole in the back of the male, where the female laies her eggs, hatcheth her young, and feeds them till they are able to fly: great trouble and affection of the parent! I set down what I have heard. This

is certainly the bird so lively drawn in our maps. The Pelican hath better credit (called by Quevedo the self-disciplining bird), and hath been discovered in the land of Angola, where some were taken. I have seen two. Some will have a scar in the breast, from a wound of her own making there, to feed (as is reported) her young with her own bloud, an action which ordinarily suggests devout fancies. So much of birds."

In a “Brief Natural History," by Eugenius Philalethes, p. 93, we read, there is a vulgar error, "that the PELICAN turneth her beak against her brest and therewith pierceth it till the blood gush out, wherewith she nourisheth her young whereas a Pelican hath a beak broad and flat, much like the slice of apothecaries and chirurgions, wherewith they spread their plaisters, no way fit to pierce, as Laurentius Gubertus, counsellor and physitian to Henry the Fourth of France, in his book of 'Popular Errors,' hath observed."

THE REMORA,

OF WHICH THE STORY IS THAT IT STAYS SHIPS UNDER SAIL.

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THE BEAVER BITING OFF HIS TESTICLES WHEN HE IS PURSUED.

"THAT the Bever being hunted and in danger to be taken biteth off his Stones, knowing that for them his life only is sought, and so often escapeth: hence some have derived his name, Castor, a castrando seipsum; and upon this supposition, the Egyptians in their hieroglyphicks, when they will signifie a man that hurteth himself, they picture a Bever biting off his own Stones, though Alciat, in his 'Emblems,' turnes it to a contrary purpose, teaching us by that example to give away our purse to theeves, rather than our lives, and by

our wealth to redeem our danger. But this relation touching the Bever is undoubtedly false, as both by sense and experience and the testimony of Dioscorides, lib. iii., cap. 13, is manifested. First, because their Stones are very small, and so placed in their bodies as are a Bore's; and therefore impossible for the Bever himself to touch or come by them: and secondly, they cleave so fast unto their back, that they cannot be taken away but the beast must of necessity lose his life; and consequently, most ridiculous is their narra

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