VOL. XX.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 255 



naturally they are but small, and often not observed. Where there is a perfo- 

 ration of the stomach upon an inflammation, and upon that an imposthumation; 

 there the foramen is larger and not regular : as I once remarkably met with it 

 in a child, where a large part of one side of the stomach was sphacelated. So 

 likewise upon a corrosive poison taken, its effects are not confined to so narrow 

 a compass ; as I observed once in one who had taken ratsbane. 



There was nothing contained in the stomach but a body of clotted hair, 

 formed into the shape and figure of the stomach, somewhat like a half-moon; 

 covered with a slimy viscid substance, which served the better to glue these 

 hairs together. These hairy tophi are frequently to be met with in tiie stomach 

 of brutes, as oxen ; and the butchers say that they chiefly meet with them in 

 the winter season, after the hair begins to shed, and the cattle feed upon hay 

 and dry meat : but after the spring, and in summer, they more seldom find 

 them ; as if the new grass, which purges them, contributed to dissolve these 

 tophi likewise. Georg. Hieron. Velscius has written 2 medico-philosophical dis- 

 sertations (viz. De iEgagropilis) about these tophi, found in goats ; and others 

 have made distinct treatises on them ; and Gul. Piso (Hist. Nat. et Med.) gives 

 a figure and description of one. But our animal is carnivorous, and most rapa- 

 cious of the vermine kind ; and where it cannot find its prey on the land, it will 

 hunt for it in the trees ; climbing up very nimbly ; and, if the tender bough 

 cannot bear the weight of its body on its feet, by twisting its tail about the twig, 

 it can hang by it, and stretch itself the farther, to obtain its desired food, or 

 rob a nest. Nay, by this means it is said to fly, or pass from one tree to 

 another, without descending down ; for thus hanging by its tail, and waving 

 and swinging its body like a pendulum, it can fling itself into the boughs of a 

 neighbouring tree ; where his tail is sure to take fast hold of the first bough it 

 lights on, if otherwise it misses his footing; and his hinder feet being made like 

 hands, with a thumb, it can more readily raise its body up by them. When 

 driven by hunger, they can take up with other food besides animal, not refusing 

 fruit, bread, &c. 



The mesentery is that membranous part which connects the intestines to- 

 gether, fixes their situation, and gives them the order of their figure. The in- 

 testines are not just fastened to the periphery or outward circumference of the 

 mesentery ; but its external membrane, on both sides, is entirely projected, and: 

 continued over the whole canal or duct of the guts, and forms their external or 

 common membrane: so that often, by separating this outward membrane from 

 the muscular that lies under it, the whole length of the guts may be extracted, 

 leaving only the common membrane, as it is continued from that of the mesen- 

 tery, which could be inflated, as if the whole of the guts remained. 



