VOL. XIX.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 103 



months before : when the mother being gone to bed, by chance she heard a 

 report that a man had murdered his wife, and with a knife had given her a great 

 wound in her breast, at which relation she changed, but not excessively. 



Now my opinion is, that the child at the very moment that the mother was 

 frighted, received the wound in its mother's body, as the wound was very sordid ; 

 and the inside as well as the outside beset with slime, proceeding from the 

 water wherein the child is used to lie in its mother's womb, and it was also very 

 like an old wound. But what is most worthy of reflection is, that the wound 

 after three or four days' dressing, beginning to come to suppuration and mundi- 

 fication, began to bleed very fast with streams when dressed and wiped ; and it 

 plainly, in all its circumstances, was very like a fresh cut wound ; only that the 

 ends of the cut vessels were so covered with slime, that the circulation could 

 not force the blood through it. 



Account of a Book, viz. — Catalogus Plantarum, qucP in Insula Jamaica sponte 

 proveniunt vel vulgo coluntur, cum earuudem Synonymis el Locis Natalibus, &c. 

 &c. Autore Hans Sloane, M. D. Lond. 1696. Bvo. N° 221, p. 293. 



A catalogue of plants which grow naturally or are cultivated in Jamaica and 

 other parts of the West Indies. 



An Account of A sorts of strange Beans frequently cast on Shore on the Orkney 

 Isles, ivith some Conjectures on the Manner of their being brought thither from 

 Jamaica. By Hans Sloajie, S. R. S. N° 222, p. 2g8, 



I had several times heard of strange beans frequently thrown up by the sea 

 on the islands, on the north-west parts of Scotland, especially on those most 

 exposed to the waves of the great ocean ; they are no otherwise regarded than 

 as they serve to make snufF-boxes. Four sorts of them have been sent me, 

 very fresh, being little injured by the sea: three of these beans grow in Ja- 

 maica, where I have gathered them, and have mentioned them in my catalogue 

 of the plants of that island. 



The first is what is there commonly called cocoons, by me phaseolus maximus 

 perennis, folio decomposite, lobo maximo contorto.* It grows in both the 

 hot East and West Indies ; and it is said to be cast up on the coast of Kerry in 

 Ireland. 



The second sort of bean sent from Scotland, is what in Jamaica we call com- 

 monly horse-eye bean,-|- from its resemblance to the eye of that beast, by means 

 of a hilus or welt, almost surrounding it. This bean also is common to the 



* Mimosa scandens. Lin. f Dolichos pmriens. Lin. 



