INDEX. 269 



consist of more females than males ; its scent foetid ; has 

 attacked and killed children in the cradle ; is easily irritat- 

 ed, and then smells more offensively ; its bite difficult of 

 cure ; has eight grinding teeth ; to the ferret kind may be 

 added an animal called by M. Buffon the vansire, iii. 76. 

 Originally from Africa, 139. 



Fibres, muscular, compose the stomachs of insects, ii. 224. 

 Fieldfare, bird of the sparrow kind, iv. 255, 257. 

 Figure, little known exactly of the proportion of the human 

 figure ; different opinions concerning it, i. 432. Whence 

 proceed the variations in the human figure, ii. 94. The 

 oldest measure of the human figure in the monument of 

 Cheops, in the first pyramid of Egypt, 115. 

 Finder, a dog of the generous kind, iii. 14. 

 Fins, different purposes they answer in fishes, v. 3. 

 Fin-fish, v. 34. Its food, 41. 



Fingers, by habit, and not from a greater number of nerves, 

 become exacter in the art of feeling than any other part, 

 even where sensation is more delicate and fine, ii. 52. 

 Fire, perpetual, in the kingdom of Persia, i. 76. Advantages 

 arising from the subterranean fires, 107. Put out by the 

 sun shining upon it, and why, 285. Great globe of fire 

 seen at Bononia, in Italy, not less than a mile long, and 

 half a mile broad, 324. Lighted to preserve herds and 

 flocks from animals of the cat kind, ii. 406. 

 Fire-flare, Pliny, JElian, and Oppian, supply the weapon of 

 this fish with a venom affecting even the inanimate crea- 

 tion ; reasons to doubt of it, v. 84. 



Fishes, petrified, found in the mountains of Castravan, i. 42. 

 Fish in abundance found in a new-formed island ; those who 

 eat of them died shortly after, 109. Cannot live in water 

 whence the air is exhausted, 270. Showers of fishes raised 

 in the air by tempests, 331. Most of them produced from 

 the egg, 368. Have no eyelids at all, 415. Nor any neck, 

 428. Having no organs for feeling, must be stupid, ii. 52. 

 The ocean is the great receptacle of fishes ; opinion that all 

 fish are naturally of the salt element, and have mounted up 

 into fresh water by accidental migration ; some swim up 

 rivers to deposit their spawn ; of which the size is enormous, 

 and the shoals endless ; all keep to the sea, and would ex- 

 pire in fresh water ; their pursuits, migration, societies, an- 

 tipathies, pleasures, times of gestation, and manner of bring- 

 ing forth, are all hidden in the turbulent element that pro- 

 tects them ; the chief instruments in the motion of a fish are 

 the fins ; in some they are more numerous than in others ; 

 it is not always the fish with the greatest number of fins that 

 have the swiftest motion ; how the fins assist the fish in ris- 

 ing or sinking, in turning or leaping out of the water ; all 

 this explained by the experiment of a carp put into a large 



