39 2 
TlMEHRI. 
are applied, modern experiments seem to promise still 
wider application. It is but quite recently that satisfactory 
experiments were performed to shew that as a lining for 
ships of war, the compressed fibre of the husk of the 
cocoanut was to the highest degree suitable ; while 
another opening seems to lie in the path of medicine 
for the milk and pulp of the fruit itself. It appears from 
the observations of Prof. Parisi of Athens, that the 
juice and pulp of the cocoa-nut, when taken in their 
natural state, has a most intense action on cestoid para- 
sites, and that when these were extruded from the body, 
the complete parasite, head and all, were discharged and 
quite dead. As the discovery of these vermifuge 
qualities was made by him owing to the action of the 
cocoanut milk and pulp on himself, and as the quality 
was tested by a number of observations which were most 
satisfactory, it seems reasonable to conclude that a most 
simple and powerful vermifuge has been added to the 
pharmacopoeia. 
A cosmopolitan Guiana Bird. — Statements are often 
more or less positively made as to the identity of species 
of Guiana birds with English species ; it may therefore 
be worth while to notice here, what has already been 
noted by others, that the only species of bird which is 
native both to England and to Guiana, is the common 
screech-owl, the Strix flammea, one of the most widely 
distributed of all birds, and one found throughout nearly 
the whole world. Certain other birds, such as the Lap- 
wing (Vanellus cayennensis) , the snipe (Gallinago 
frenata), the wren (Troglodytes furvus) , and the plover 
(Charadrius virginicus) , may easily be confounded with 
