34Q I'HILOSOtHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO I698. 



inches long, exactly like the footstalks of fern, both without and within. Most 

 part of the outside was covered with a down, of a dark yellowish snufF-colour, 

 shining like silk, some of it a quarter of an inch long. This down is what is 

 commonly used in spitting of blood, about six grains of it being taken to a dose, 

 and three doses supposed to cure such an hsemorrhage. In Jamaica are many 

 scandent and tree-ferns, which grow on, or to the size of trees, and have such 

 a kind of down on tliem, and some of our capillaries have something like it. 

 It seems to be shaped by art to imitate a lamb, the roots or climbing part being 

 made to resemble the body, and the extant footstalks the legs. This down is 

 noticed by Dr. Merret, by the name of poco sempie, a golden moss, and is 

 there said to be a cordial. I have been assured by Dr. Brown, who has made 

 good observations in the East Indies, that he has been told there by those who 

 have lived in China, that this down or hair is used by them for the stopping of 

 blood in fresh wounds, as cobwebs are with us, and that they have it in so great 

 esteem that few houses are without it. I have known it much used in spitting 

 of blood ; it being pretended that some of the small down may, by being swal- 

 lowed, easily slip into the windpipe, and so stop the bleeding : but on trials, 

 though I may believe it innocent, yet I am sure it is not infallible. 



Other figures show eight several instruments made for paring the nails, at 

 which the Chinese are very curious and dexterous. These instruments are each 

 of them shaped like a chizzel. One represents a kind of instrument, called in 

 China a champing instrument. Its use is to be rubbed or rolled all over the 

 muscular flesh. It is like a horse's curry-comb, and is said to be used after the 

 same manner, and for the same purposes that they are made use of for 

 horses. 



Account of a Book, viz. — Museo di Planle rare delta Sicilia, Malta, Corsica, 

 Italia, riemonte e Germania, &c. di Don Paolo Boccone, &c. ivith additional 

 Re7narhs. By Mr. John Ray, F. R. S. N° 247, p. 402. 



Signior Paolo Boccone, a gentleman of Sicily, botanist to the Great Duke of 

 Tuscany, and now a monk of the Cistertian Order, of the province of Sicily, 

 having changed his praenomen into Sylvius, has made- himself well known to 

 the learned world, by his writings published many years since, viz. His Icones 

 et Descriptiones Rariorum Plantarum Sicilis, Melitje, Galliee et Italiae, Oxford, 

 1674. And his Letters about several natural curiosities, written in French, and 

 printed at Amsterdam. 



In the present work he gives us a large collection of rare plants, most of 

 which are new and nondescript, curiously delineated and engraven in 130 

 octavo plates, which he divides into decades, inscribing each decade to a Venetian 



