MACKIE — ON FOSSIL BIRDS. 
421 
and to separate the whole into two distinct classes ; ascribing to one 
those which seem to be mere playthings of Nature, and to tlbe other 
those due to the universal deluge, by which, according to what we 
learn from the sacred Scriptures (Geu. vii. 19), the whole earth was 
drowned and the highest mountains covered with water. 
" § V. In the first class we will arrange all those fossil bodies which 
represent various superficial images, — figures of ants, beetles, pea- 
cocks, fishes and other animals, and which, it seems, had been already 
frequently observed in the time of Pliny, who refers to them in his 
H. N. lib. 37. Athanase Kirchner seems to have been the first to 
observe them in marble, jasper, and agate-stone. Yery interesting is 
what Pliny says (1. c.) about an agate belonging to king Pyrrhus, on 
which Nature has sculptured the figure of Apollo with his cithara, 
attended by the nine Muses, and on which, by a certain tracery of 
stains, the instruments of all the Muses were reproduced. See 
' Disputatio M. Jo. Jacobi Lungershausen,' held at Jena, about the 
figured imitations of nature, showing many beautiful phenomena of 
agates. 
" § VI. Those marbles, which are very elegantly coloured, re- 
present to our fancy various figures, as may be seen in many very 
curious specimens; they are, therefore, largely dug in our neigh- 
bouring principality of Idstein, where they adorn sacred as well as 
profane buildings, from the pavement to the roof. Not less inter- 
esting, and not yielding in interest to the above, whether we look at 
the most elegant pictures they produce, or whether we consider them 
as a plentiful supply of coloured marble, are the specimens which 
were lately communicated to us by a friend from the principality of 
Diz, and which we may recommend as particularly deserving the 
notice of our readers, the first three, fig. 1, 2, and 3, drawn correctly 
<rom the originals. The fig. 1 represents an entire human head, 
together with all other parts of the body, not inelegantly drawn. 
The fig. 2 represents a head of an Owl (see PL XXII. Fig. 1, nobis) ; 
and the fig. 3 a view of a country, which is but a mere play (artifice) 
of nature. With regard to the latter it may perhaps not be unsuit- 
able to compare what D. D. Behrens in his ' Hercynia Curiosa,' 
p. 134, titl. xiii. says, about the quarry called the ' map-stone.' It 
is as follows : — ' This stone is found in the quarries of the villages 
Petersdorff" and Hudigers- or Kiddigers- Dorff* belonging to the 
Count Stollberg's estates at Hohestein or Neustadt, and the name 
of ' map-stone ' was given to it because the veins of this stone bear 
in the most part the appearance of rivers as tiaced on maps.' " 
The original runs thus : — 
" § IV. Quo vero eo melius haec nostra figurata ab omnibus ac singulis 
intelligi queant et ut omnis eo facilius inter ilia evitetur confusio ; operse 
prsetium facturos nos putamus, si relictis aliis spiuosis et futilibus circa 
illorum production em oberrantibus opinionibus,cum hie quilibet suo videatur 
abundare ingenio, ea dispescamus in duplicem classem, alia adscribendo 
mere accidentali NATUKJi Lusui, aha e contra a Diluvio illo Univeesali, 
