same length as a man's, but thicker and
stronger; the latter is in bigness and
shape not much unlike that called lapis
manati, but the knobs and hollows somewhat
different.

The aforesaid manati seems to be a sea-cow,
which perhaps the mermaiden milked,
especially as they could be domesticated,
For, "A certain Indian king kept and fed
one of them with bread six-and-twenty years
in a lake near his house, and he [the cow]
would sometimes carry ten people on his
back, with ease, across the lake." He was
better tempered than his neighbour the
punger, pagarus, or velvet crab, which
have been found "so big, that whensoever
they got any man within their claws,
it cost him his life." The only compensation
is, that the punger is himself excellent
eating, when you can catch this velvet
crab.

The fable of the barnacle is discredited;
but, to make amends, we are told of both
caterpillars and butterflies in Brasile which
are transformed into humming birds; and
that in the time of transformation there is
plainly to be seen half a caterpillar or half a
butterfly, and half a bird, both together.
Yet this bird buildeth her nest of cotton
wool and layeth eggs. Piso relates this
wonder as known to himself.

In England in those days the bees had a
faculty, which they have somehow lost; in
windy weather they were wont to hold "a
little stone in their hinder feet, which served
as ballast, to make them sail through the air
more steadily."

But it would be strange if all this science
did not tend to practical usefulness; and we
rejoice to learn that it was applied, inter
alia, to many valuable medical and
economical purposes. Take the following
examples:

The moss off a humane skull, called usnea,
had a peculiar virtue for stopping bleeding at
the nose.

Turtle's (sea-tortoise's) legs (i.e. fins),
applied to the part affected, are a most
experienced remedy for gout. (What causes,
cures—exemplification of the medical axiom
so strenuously insisted upon in our time.)
Wilks' shells burnt and powdered, and mixed
with old oil to the consistence of glew, is an
admirable remedy for baldness and morph of
long standing. The head to be shaved and
rubbed before anointing. But even the shells
are good for chin-cough (hooping-cough), if
children only drink out of them. But again,
"the ashes of bees are put into most
compositions for breeding of hair; "in this way
one might be said to have a bee in his
bonnet; and yet more efficacious, "The hair
of the head being often wet with the water of
common flags distilled in Balneo Mariæ, will
grow to a very great length. And apropos
of flys, almost all of them being chewed
swallowed, cause violent vomitings, whilst
butterflies, and nearly all other insects,
including crickets, are very diuretick."

A fair lady having made her toilet, as far
as the hair is concerned, with wilks, bees'
ashes, and distilled flys, has next to take
equal parts of powdered mother-of-pearl and
the small white Venus shell, pour some
lemon-juice on the mixture, and let it stand
a day or two; then filter the liquor, and she
"will have the best wash for the face in the
world." The best dentifrice is obtainable from
burnt and powdered mussel-shells; but almost
all shells are good. Other lotions and charms
are derivable from other sources too tedious
to mention; and if you want laudanum, it
is to be gathered, with intolerable labour, in
the dog-days, when the sun shines hottest, as
a gumous exudation, on the leaves of the
Cistus ledon, which flourishes chiefly at
the foot of Mount Ida. We wonder if
the bees that make the honey about
Hybla are up to the trick of stone-lifting
like the English: but our authority is not
very great with mythological references.
His account of the remora, or shiphalter, is
an example. His mouth is compared to the
leather suckers with which boys lift weights;
but it is questioned, as the fish is not a yard
long, and his mouth not over two inches and
a-half wide, that he possesses sufficient power
to stop a ship under full sail, as many concur
in thinking; and as for the causes they take
great pains to assign, it is scornfully
remarked,that "though the moon be made of
green cheese, it is not the only nest of
maggots."

"'Tis plain," continues the argument,
"that the tradition had a very early beginning,
when little light boats were the ships
which people used; to the side whereof,
this fish fastening herself, might easily make
it sway, as the least preponderance on either
side will do, and so retard its course. And
the story once begot upon a boat might still,
like the fish itself, stick to it, though turned
to a ship; assigning as great a power to this
Neptune in the sea as the poets have done to
Apollo the God of Life, in the Heavens, who
yet appears, by the best accounts of him put
together, to have been at first no better than
a crafty mountebank."

There are, nevertheless, some curious
particulars originating at this remote period, of
  more import than the surprise that ducks
should exist after feeding on living toads;
we learn that Mr. Boyle, having
embowelled and preserved a linnet for seventeen
years in rectified spirits of wine, was the
"first that made trial of preserving animals in
this way." Upon an egg with a double shell
it is aptly noted that "Nature is so intent on
finishing her work, that she may be observed
much oftener to overdo than underdo: you
shall find twenty eggs with two yolks, or
hear of twenty animals with two heads, for
and one that hath none."

That eggs are usually of the same figure