534 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO 1 68 1-2. 



sesses this faculty, has but httle need of other assistance, and may therefore be 

 properly called self-sufficient. Now it is much to be wished, that this mathe- 

 matical history, which lies scattered through many volumes, and is not yet intire 

 and complete, were to be all collected into one book. And for this purpose, 

 there would be no occasion to be at the charge of seeking or purchasing many 

 books. For, since authors transcribe many things from one another, whatever 

 is extant may be somewhere found, in any library that is but moderately fur- 

 nished. Nor is diligence in collecting all things so necessary, as judgment to 

 reject what is superfluous, and knowledge to supply such things as are not yet 

 discovered. Now if such a book were at hand, from thence any one might 

 learn the whole mathematical history, and a good part of the science also. But 

 if any one should desire to have the whole that belongs to the practice, as in- 

 struments, machines, engines, &c. were he a king, and had the wealth of the 

 whole world at command, he could not supply the necessary expences. Neither 

 indeed is there any occasion for it: it is sufficient if he can describe them all, 

 and that he either knows how to make for himself such as are wanted, or can 

 direct artificers to construct them. 



An Account of the Dissection of an Ostrich.* By Edward Brown, F. R, S. 

 and of the College of Physicians. Philos. Collect. N° 5, p. 147. 



The ostrich is esteemed the largest and tallest of winged or feathered fowl, 

 being sometimes 8 feet high, which bulk if we compare with the tominejo or 

 humming-bird, weighing about 12 grains, we may readily discern within what 

 compass and latitude the creation of birds was ordained. 



On the top of his head there is a flat oval place, a nail in length, which is 

 all callous, and without any hair or feathers, like the callous part of his breast, 

 but not so thick, to preserve the brain from the serenes that fall in hot coun- 

 tries, and other injuries of the air, especially in the night, and the more con- 

 siderably if he sleeps with his head upright, and not under his wing. 



The gula is very large as well as long ; the os hyoides stretches itself down 

 on each side of the neck, the length of 5 or 6 inches. 



Besides the many muscles in the neck for the motion of the numerous ver- 

 tebrae and the head, there are two most elegant muscles which come from 

 within the thorax, arising within the chest about the second rib, which insert 

 themselves on each side of the aspera arteria ; these I may name directores 

 asperse arteriee. At the first dividing of the aspera arteria, or its divarication 



* Other accounts of the anatomical peculiarities observed in the dissection of the ostrich are given 

 in the 33d, 34th, and 36th vols, of the Philosophical Transactions. 



