VOL. I.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 135 



do, they are sprinkled over with strong vinegar, and rubbed between one's 

 hands ; afterwards, little balls are formed of them, which are exposed to the 

 sun to dry. 



If this red powder should be let alone, without pouring vinegar or some 

 other acid liquor upon it, out of every grain there would be formed a little 

 fly, which would skip and fly up and down for a day or two, and at last chang- 

 ing its colour, fall down quite dead, deprived of all the bitterness which the 

 grains whence they are generated had possessed. 



The grain being altogether emptied of its pulp or red powder, is washed in' 

 wine, and then exposed to the sun. Being well dried, it is rubbed in a sack 

 to render it bright ; and then put up in small sacks, putting in the midst, ac- 

 cording to the quantity the grain has affbrded, 10 or 12 pounds (for a quintal) 

 of the dust, which is the red powder that came out of it. And accordingly 

 as the grain affords more or less of the said powder, dyers buy more or less 

 of it. 



It is to be noted, that the first red powder which appears issues out of the 

 hole of the grain, that is, on the side where the grain adhered to the plant ; 

 and that which about the end appears sticking on the grain has been alive in 

 the husk, having pierced its cover, though the hole whence it commonly 

 issues remains close as to the eye. 



Boohs lately Published. N' 20, p. 364. 



I. Pinax Rerum Naturalium Brittaniarum continens Vegetabilia, Animalia 

 et Fossilia, in hoc insula reperta, Inchoatus. Auth. Christophoro Merret, 

 Med. D. et utriusque Societatis Rigiae socio. 



The learned author of this book has, by his laudable example of collecting 

 together what natural things are to be found here in England, invited the 

 curious in all parts of the world to attempt the like, and thereby to establish 

 the much desired and highly useful commerce among naturalists, and to 

 contribute every where to the composing of a genuine and full history of 

 nature. 



II. Placita Philosophica Guarini. The chief subject of this treatise is natural 

 philosophy ; upon many important questions whereof it enlarges, as those of 

 the motion of the celestial bodies, of light, of meteors, and of the vital and 

 animal functions ; leaving sometimes the common opinions, and delighting in 

 the defence of paradoxes. 



III. Gustus Organum, per Lauren tium Bellini, novissime deprehensum. 

 A Treatise on the Organ of Taste. By Lawrence Bellini.* 



* Bellini was born at Florence in l643, and studied at Pisa, where the expences of his education 

 were defrayed by Ferdinand II. through whose interest he successively obtained the professorships of 



