2Q2 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO 1747- 



4 days, it eats nothing, seems to have no apparatus for that purpose, but brings 

 up with it out of the water sufficient support to enable it to shed its skin, and 

 perform the principal ends of life with great vivacity. . 



They appear at 6 o'clock in the evening. On the 26th of May he perceived a 

 few ; but the 27th, 28th, 29th, and 30th, it was a sight very surprising and en- 

 tertaining, to see the rivers teeming with innumerable pretty nimble flying ani- 

 mals, and almost every thing nearly covered with them ; when he looked up, the 

 air was full of them, as high as he could discern ; and seemed so thick, and al- 

 ways in motion, the like it seems when one looks up and sees the snow coming 

 down : and yet this wonderful appearance, in 3 or 4 days after the last of May, 

 totally disappeared. 



On a Stone taken out of the Bladder of a Dog; which being cut asunder had a 

 Piece of Dog-grass in its Centre. By Mr. fVm. Fidge, Surgeon at Ports- 

 mouth. N° 482, p. 335. 



The stone above alluded to was taken out of the bladder of a very large mastifK 

 about 3 years old, belonging to the porter of his majesty's dock-yard at Ports- 

 mouth. The dog died in about 3 days after receiving a kick from some one en- 

 deavouring to part him from another mastiff he was fighting with. 



When Mr. F. had opened the abdomen, he found it filled with bloody urine ; 

 and having before heard that his death was supposed to be occasioned by the 

 kick, he immediately thought the bladder must be the part hurt ; which, when 

 he had cleansed the abdomen, he examined, and found this large stone, with the 

 bladder contracted close to it on every side, and rent at the bottom about 4 of 

 an inch ; so that what urine came to the bladder was discharged into the abdo- 

 men ; which was plainly the cause of the dog's death. 



When first taken out it weighed 10 oz. 24^ drs. After it was cut asunder, he 

 found it formed on what seemed to be a piece of dog-grass. 



He did not find the least particle of gravel or sand, either in the kidneys or 

 ureters ; but all the bones (except the ribs and cranium) were more or less 

 carious. 



An Uncommon Dropsy from the Want of a Kidney; a^d the Description of a 

 large Saccus that contained the Water. By Samuel Glass, Surgeon at Oxford.. 

 N° 482, p. 337. 



Mary Nix, at Hampton-Poyle, a small village in Oxfordshire, had been re- 

 markable all her life for the preternatural size of her belly. After her death, 

 Mr. G. had the curiosity, with some learned gentlemen of the university, to 

 inspect her body. Her mother was then present, and informed them that this 

 her daughter was born dropsical ; that she herself had been ill of the same dis- 



