254 PHILOSOPHICAL TKANSACTIONS. [aNNO 1675-, 



The former are either carnivorous or frugivorous. Concerning the carnivorous 

 or rapacious, he takes notice; 1. That, though Aristotle says they fly solitary, 

 yet vultures have been observed to fly in flocks, 50 or 6o together. 2. That the 

 females of the ravenous birds are larger, stronger, and of greater courage than 

 the males ; nature seeming to have been so provident as to furnish those fe- 

 males with such advantages, because they must procure food, not only for 

 themselves, but also for their young ones. Of the frugivorous he observes, 

 amongst other particulars, that, as quails eat hellebore, and starlings hemlock, 

 without any harm to themselves, so parrots not only eat innoxiously the seed 

 of carthamus or bastard saflron, but also grow fat thereby, which is a purgative 

 to man. 



Amongst those that have straight beaks and claws, he observes : that the 

 cassowary as well as the pelican is without a tongue; swallowing not only bits 

 of iron, as the ostriches, but also red-hot coals, yet not digesting the iron, but 

 voiding it whole as the ostrich does; that capons may be made to keep, feed, 

 call together, and cover under their wings, young chickens, just as hens do ; 

 adding the method for accustoming them to it; that the custom of making use 

 of pigeons for carrying letters is as ancient as the siege of Mutina or Modena, 

 in the time of Hirtius and Brutus; that pigeon's flesh is good for paralytica! 

 persons ; that swallows distilled with some castoreum, pyony roots, and white 

 wine, are an approved remedy against the epilepsy, &c. 



The third, treating of water-fowl, is subdivided into three parts; the first 

 contains those birds that live near water, but not in or upon it. The second, 

 those that live much in the water, being fissipeds, having their toes severed, 

 and long shanked, and of the amphibious kind, partaking of the nature of both 

 those that live near water and swim in it. The third, those that are palmipeds, 

 whose toes are joined together with a membrane. Of those that live near wet 

 places, some again live upon fish or slime, as woodcocks, snipes, curlews, &c. 

 or on insects. Of the piscivorous, the stork is by our author noted to be seen 

 in England, only when he is driven thither by high winds, or other accidents. 

 The penguin is observed to dig deep holes, like conies, on the sea shore, and 

 to make the whole ground thereabout so hollow, that the seamen walking over- 

 it often fall in knee deep. The anser bassanus, the Soland goose, breeding in 

 the isle of Bassa, near Edinburgh, lays and hatches no more than one egg at a 

 time. They come thither in spring, and fly away in autumn, but whither is 

 not known. The colymbus minor, or didapper, has such a structure of parts, 

 that he moves much more easily under water than on its surface or aloft ; he 

 raises himself from the water with great difliculty, but when he is got up into 

 the air, he can then continue his flight long enough. The swan is very long- 



