VOL. LXXVII.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 301 



she died ; and when he adds, that of these last 6 one is yet alive, and is now 

 Lord of Maldemeure, how can we disbeHeve this circumstance ? This story 

 may very possibly be inaccurately stated, yet the whole cannot be a fiction, as it 

 was published among the very people, and in the age when it happened, and 

 never has been since contradicted so far as we know. Though the wonderful 

 regularity of the progress gives an appearance of fable to the whole, yet we 

 must believe the thing to be possible : and that this then existing lord might be 

 the only 1 of the six who lived long enough to be born at the full time, in a 

 mature state ; the whole, or most of the other 5, as we have sometimes seen 

 in cases of twins, having been born as dead abortions, which had never arrived 

 to a bulk sufficient to interfere with his growth. 



I leave the learned to pay what degree of credit they please to the wonderful 

 relations we read of the extreme fertility of the women of Egypt, Arabia, and 

 other warm countries, as recorded by Aristotle, by Pliny, and by Albucasis, 

 where 3, 4, 5, and 6 children are said to have been frequently born at once, 

 and the greatest part of these reared to maturity ; and will only say, that though 

 a late traveller, M. Savary, gives ample testimony of the extreme general fertility 

 of Egypt in all vegetable and animal productions, and particularly of its abun- 

 dant population, he mentions nothing of the numerous births recorded by the 

 ancient naturalists and historians. 



Of still more fruitful births I will pass over a number of instances which I 

 could adduce from Johannes Ehodius, Lucas Schroeckius, Caspar Bauhin, 

 Johannes Helvigius, Bianchi, and others, and finish with 1 case more, recorded 

 by Petrus Borelli in his Second Century of Observations, published at Paris in 

 the year 1656; a collection indeed filled with many wonderful stories, though 

 by a man of equal integrity and ingenuity : he tells us, that in the year iSoO, 

 just 5 years before, the lady of the then present Lord Darre produced at 1 birth 

 8 perfect children, which he owns was a very unusual event in that country. 



I think it totally unnecessary to pursue this inquiry further ; but must observe, 

 that the present is the only case I have found, where the children were all fe- 

 males ; that the males have in all the other cases been at least equal, and gene- 

 rally the more numerous ; that in many of them, at least a part was dead born ; 

 and that most commonly the rest died in a short time. It is thence clear, that 

 those numerous births are certainly unfavourable to population, as very few 

 indeed of those children can be carried to near the full term of pregnancy, and 

 fewer still to that degree of strength that admits of their being reared, where 

 more than 2 are born at one time. 



As from Mr. John Hunter's very curious experiments and observations, read 

 lately to this Society, on the procreation of swine, we are led to believe, that a 



