Lunar Delineation. 195 



gencies of a tribe of fishes which browse upon the lithophytes 

 that clothe, as with a richly-tinted carpet, the bottom of the 

 sea, just as the ruminant quadrupeds crop the herbage of the 

 dry land." In another place he says, "the proof of the 

 efficacy of the complex masticatory apparatus is afforded by the 

 contents of the alimentary canal of the scari. The intestines 

 are usually laden with a chalky pulp, to which the coral 

 dwellings have been reduced." Now corallines, in the time of 

 Aristotle, were regarded as sea plants, and might well enough 

 be intended by Aristotle's cpv/clov. But what led the Stagirite 

 to believe that the scarus ruminated, when he denies the power 

 to all other fish, although certain species of Gyprinidce 

 were known to him? Was he acquainted with the 

 pharyngeal teeth of the scarus ? Probably he was only re- 

 peating, as he often did, a hearsay story; and the peculiar 

 beak-like jaws of the scarus may have suggested to some 

 Greek fisherman the idea that it ruminated. It is probable 

 that the scarus, like the Cyprinidw, returns portions of the hard 

 coralline contents of its stomach for trituration by the masti- 

 catory pharyngeal teeth ; but the ancient idea, if a fact, was 

 not the result of a scientific investigation or observation, but 

 simply a happy guess. 



LUNAR DELINEATION.— THE LUNAR ARISTILLUS 

 AND AUTOLYCUS. 



BY THE EEV. T. W. WEBB, M.A., F.R.A.S. 



Some remarks were made, in our last number, on the expe- 

 diency of forming a monograph of the lunar spot Gassini, by 

 means of a series of sketches taken under very varied angles 

 of illumination. Nothing less than this is in fact demanded 

 for every accessible part of the visible hemisphere of our 

 satellite, before our knowledge of her surface can be considered 

 commensurate with the progress of modern astronomy. We 

 have here evidently an undertaking involving the employment 

 of many eyes and hands, and extending, especially in our tur- 

 bid climate, over many seasons ; and as it lies" somewhat on 

 one side of the province of the regular observatory, so fortu- 

 nately it is one in which amateurs may render very efficient 

 aid. This indeed is being done to some extent at the present 

 moment ; but a considerable increase may be looked for in the 

 number of such observers, both from the attention which the 

 subject has attracted of late years, and from the far greater 



