Royal Irish Academy, 359 



disuse. Thus this work has, from this combination of circumstances, 

 been passed over ; is seldom quoted except at second-hand ; and no 

 edition of it distinct from the other works of the author, or illustrated 

 as the subject required, has appeared since that of Scaliger, pub- 

 lished in 1619, — except one, accompanied by a French translation 

 by Camus, in 1782, which is said to be incorrect, and is become 

 scarce. 



Dr. Osborne proceeded to make a short analysis of the contents 

 of this work, and showed that Aristotle had anticipated Dr. Jenner's 

 researches respecting the cuckoo, as also some discoveries with re- 

 spect to the incubated egg, which have been published within the 

 last year. His observations on fish and cetaceous animals are curious 

 in the extreme, as might be expected from the variety of these ani- 

 mals abounding in the Grecian seas. Those on insects it is difficult 

 to appreciate, from uncertainty as to the names. He describes the 

 economy of bees, as we have it at present ; but mistakes the sex of the 

 queen. He holds the doctrine of spontaneous generation in those 

 cases in which he could not detect the ovary ; an inevitable conclu- 

 sion arising from the want of the microscope, to which, and the want 

 of knowledge of pneumatic chemistry, his principal errors are to be 

 referred. The various organs are described as modified throughout 

 the different classes of animals (beginning with man, the BovXevn- 

 Kov fxovov), in nearly the same order as that afterwards adopted by 

 Cuvier. 



As specimens of the interesting matter treated of in the work, 

 Dr. Osborne selected the animal nature of sponges ; the ages of va- 

 rious animals; the movements of the nautilus ; (the same doubt ex- 

 isting in the author's mind as to the origin of the shell, which has 

 divided the opinions of Messrs. Blainville, Owen, Gray, and Mad. 

 Power, within the last year;) the localities of animals, as affording 

 data for ascertaining the rate at which they have extended them- 

 selves over the globe ; particulars relating to artificial incubation as 

 practised in Egypt ; the management of cattle ; a mode of fattening 

 hogs with rapidity, by commencing with a fast of three days ; the 

 mohair goat located in Cilicia, as at present ; hybernation and mi- 

 grations of various animals and fish ; description of the fisher-fish 

 (^Lophius piscatorius) and of the torpedo, with the proof that they 

 catch their prey in the extraordinary manner described ; many inge- 

 nious modes of taking the partridge, and of fishing detailed; the friend- 

 ships which have been perpetuated between different classes of ani- 

 mals, — as the trochilus and the crocodile, the Pinna muricata and 

 the Cancer pinnotheres, the crow and the heron ; their animosities. 



