M PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO 1713. 



the ombrise pellucidae (which are crystal balls, or hemispheres, or depressed 

 ovals) in great esteem for curing of cattle ; and some on May day put them into 

 a tub of water, and besprinkle all their cattle with that water, to prevent being 

 elf-struck, bewitched, &c. And 



7. As to this elf-striking, their opinion is, that the fairies (not having much 

 power themselves to hurt animal bodies) do sometimes carry men away in the 

 air, and furnishing them with bows and arrows, employ them to shoot men, 

 cattle, &c. The arrow-heads they ascribe to elfs or fairies : they are just the 

 same chipped flints the natives of New England head their arrows with at this 

 day ; and there are also several stone hatchets found in this kingdom, not un- 

 like those of the Americans. I never heard of these arrow-heads nor hatchets 

 in Wales, nor in England. These elf arrow^-heads have not been used as 

 amulets above 30 or 40 years ; but the use of the rest is immemorial : whence 

 I gather that they were not invented for charms, but were once used in shoot- 

 ing here, as they are still in America. The vulgar in this country are satisfied 

 they often drop out of the air, being shot by fairies, and relate many instances 

 of it. 



Near Glasgow we found two fossils toto genere new : one resembling small 

 joints of a lobster's arm, but much longer; the other somewhat like large 

 glossopetrae, or perhaps like the mucro of a pinna marina. These figured stones 

 are found there in an iron stone, though I never saw them in that kind of matter 

 in Wales. We found both shells and entrochi gone off to that substance, 

 having changed their matter and much of their shape. Near the same town, 

 searching for these fossils, I found in the midst of the lime-stone some cochlitae, 

 composed of flint ; but conchitae of spar, gone off so far from the shape of 

 shells, as hardly to be known, were it not from others in the same place re- 

 taining their shape more entirely. 



Mr. Southerland gave me specimens of the chamaepericlymenum, adianthum 

 acrosticon, and pyrola alsines flore EuropaBa. I had nothing for him in ex- 

 change, but samples of the vitis idaea foliis myrtinis crispis Meretti, together 

 with some of the berries. This I found plentifully for some miles together in 

 that part of Mul, next to Y Columb Kil. It is very different from the com- 

 mon vitis idaea sempervirens fructu rubro ; being a larger plant, and much more 

 branched ; the leaves of a cripsed surface, and the berries (which they told me 

 it retains all the year) like those of holly. Going up one of the high hills of 

 Mul, we found rhodia radix ; pescati; cotyledon hirsut. vaccinia rubra; sedum 

 alp. trifido folio ; and alchemilla alpina quinquefolia, which I had never seen 

 grow spontaneously. We found in this island a curious fucus arboreus, with a 

 ruffled stalk. 



