434 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. ]^ANNO 1078. 



Ohservatmis in Congo and Brazil. By Michael Angela de Guattini and Diony- 

 slus of Placenza, Missionaries thither. N° ISQ, p. 977* 



In Brazil there are certain little animals called poux de pharaon,* Pharoah's 

 lice, which enter into the feet between the skin and the flesh. They grow in 

 one day as large as beans, and if not presently drawn out they cause an intoler- 

 able ulcer, and the whole foot corrupts. 



Amongst other fair fruit trees in Brazil there is one, whose fruit is called 

 nicefFo, which has only two leaves ; each of which is large enough to cover a 

 man. 



In the kingdom of Congo there are serpents'}- 25 feet long, which will swallow 

 at once a whole sheep. The manner of taking them is thus : when they lie to 

 digest what they have eaten, they stretch themselves out in the sun, which the 

 blacks seeing kill them. And having cut off their head and tail, and embowelled 

 them, they eat them ; and usually find them as fat as hogs. There are here a great 

 number of ants, and so large, that the author reports that being one day sick in 

 iiis bed he was forced to order himself to be carried out of his room for fear of 

 being devoured by them ; as it often happens to those of Angola, where may 

 be seen in the morning the skeletons of cows devoured by these animals in one 

 night. 



On the Sorhus Pyriformis. By Mr. Edmund Pitt. N° ISQ, p. 978. 



Last year I found a rarity growing wild in a forest of Worcester. It is de- 

 scribed by L'Obelius under the name of sorbus pyriformis, J also by Mathiolus 

 upon Dioscorides, and by Bauhinus, under the name of sorbus procera. And 

 they agree, that in France, Germany, and Italy, they are commonly found. 

 But neither these, nor any of our own countrymen, as Gerard, Parkinson, 

 Johnson, How, nor those learned authors Merret or Kay, have taken notice of 

 its being a native of England. Nor have any of our English writers so much 

 as mentioned it. Only Mr. Lyte, in his Translation of Dodonseus, describes 

 it under the name of the sorb-apple. But says no more of the place, but that 

 it grows in Holland. 



It resembles the ornus or quicken tree ; only the ornus bears the flowers and 

 fruit at the end, this, on the sides of the branch. Next the sun, the fruit has 

 a dark red blush, and is about the size of a small jeneting pear. In September, 



* Chigger or chego. Pulex penetrans. Linn, 



t Boa constrictor. Linn. 



} Sorbus domestica. Linn. Pyrus domestica. Smith Engl. Bot. 350. 



