1885.] NEW-YORK MICROSCOPICAL SOCIETY. 171 



Consuls. And many times else besides it rained flesh, as namely 

 whiles L. Volumnius and Serv. Sulpitius were Consuls; and look 

 what of it the foules of the aire caught not up nor carried away, 

 it never putrified" (Bk. II., Ch. LVL).* 



Other than this, Pliny's records of prodigies are meagre and 

 vague, being confined to a reported shower of so-called iron, 

 a fall of wool, and a rain of " tyles and bricks." In the quo- 

 tation made from him above, as well as in that from Livy, it 

 will be found to be of importance to note the connection be- 

 tween the shower of flesh and the presence of a flock of birds, 

 this being one of the instances in which ancient records of prodi- 

 gies carry with them their own probable explanation. 



The shower of flesh referred to by Livy and Pliny is mentioned 

 also in a rare and curious illustrated Chronicle of Prodigies 

 and Monsters compiled by Conrad Wolffhart (or Lycosthenes), 

 and published in Latin at Basle in 1557, in which is incorpo- 

 rated all that is' known of a work ''''De Prodigiis,'" by Julius 

 Obsequens, a Roman writer in the time of Augustus. In this 

 chronicle of Wolfthart's (of a copy of which I am the fortunate 

 owner) occur also the only other records of descents of flesh 

 known to me, except the somewhat notorious *' Kentucky meat- 

 shower " of 1875. The first of those other cases is said to have 

 occurred in Liguria in 1456, A. D., and the last in France in 

 1552. As this would have been in Wolffhart's own life-time we 

 should naturally expect from him some particulars, but he fur- 

 nishes only the bald statement, " m Francia sanguine &= carne 

 pluit. 



Wolffhart's Chronicle is a rich mine of astonishing things, 

 from which I shall endeavor to summarize briefly his accounts of 

 the matters in which we are specially interested, after elimina- 

 ting those which he quotes from Livy and which we have 

 already considered. Like other writers upon prodigies, he re- 

 cords showers of earth (in the years 163, 160, and 131, B.C.), a 

 shower of chalk (B.C. 96), a fall of stones and shells (B.C. 89), 

 a rain of mud (B.C. 100), and one of ashes (A.D. 744). He also 

 describes many wonderful meteoric showers and numerous mi- 

 raculous falls of manna and other edible substances, which 

 might perhaps fairly engage our attention if the limit of our time 

 would permit. His references to showers of milk are remark- 



*PliiIeinon Holland's translation. 



