ADDENDA TO THE CURIOSITIES RESPECTING MAN. (continued 3)

[4] Klopstock’s Death in “L’Allemagne;” vol. i. p. 252.

[5] The places of the insertion of the muscles of the proboscis are visible on the skull; it was probably devoured, as well as the end of the tail.

[6] 9 ft. 6 in. measuring along the curve. The distance from the base of the root of the tusk to the point, is 3 ft. 7 in.

[7] On the arrival of the skin at Petersburg, it was totally devoid of hair.

[8] In speaking of the wild beasts of India, Pliny says, with regard to the animal in question,—

“Asperrimam autem feram monocerotem, reliquo corpore equo similem, capite cervo, pedibus eliphante, cauda apro, mugitu gravi, uno cornu nigro media fronte, cubitorum duum eminente. Hanc feram vivam negant capi.” Plin. Hist. Mund. Lib. 3, cap. 21.

The resemblance is certainly very striking.

[9] It was a female sheep, but by the sailors was constantly called Jack.

[10] Reaumur plausibly supposes, that it has been from observing this bee thus loaded, that the tale mentioned by Aristotle and Pliny, of the hive-bee’s ballasting itself with a bit of stone, previous to flying home in a high wind, has arisen.

[11] M. Huber observes, that fecundated females, after they have lost their wings, make themselves a subterranean cell, some singly, others in common. From which it appears that some colonies have more than one female from their first establishment.

[12] See Fourcroy, Annales du Muséum, No. 5, p. 338, 342. Some, however, still regard it as a distinct acid.

[13] See Fourcroy, Annales du Muséum, No. 5. p. 343.

[14] One would think the writer of the account of ants, in Mouffet, had been witness to something similar. “If they see any one idle,” (says he,) “they not only drive him as spurious, without food, from the nest; but likewise, a circle of all ranks being assembled, cut off his head before the gates, that he may be a warning to their children, not to give themselves up for the future to idleness and effeminacy.”—Theatr. Ins. p. 241.

[15] Annal. di Chimica, xiii. 1797, Mag. ii. 80.

[16]

[17] Hist. Nat. l. xi. c. 29. A similar law was enacted in Lemnos, by which every one was compelled to bring a certain measure of locusts annually to the magistrates. Plin.

[18] Of the symbolical locusts in the Apocalypse it is said, “And the sound of their wings was as the sound of chariots of many horses running to battle.”—Rev. ix. 9.

[19] Shaw says, that the gryllus cristatus, which is five or six times the size of the common locust, or gryllus migratorius, is publicly sold, both in a fresh and salted state, in the markets of some parts of the Levant. Gen. Zoology, vol. vi. part. ii. p. 138.

[20] See Dr. Plot’s Hist. of Oxf. ch. vi. sect. 45.

[21] The moving columns of sand.

[22] Palmistry is the pretended art of telling the future events of men’s lives by the lines in their hands.

[23] And yet I have seen him, after his return, addressing his wife in the language of a young bridegroom. And I have been assured, by some of his most intimate friends, that he treated her, during the rest of their lives, with the greatest kindness and affection.

[24] A specimen of the papyrus is to be seen at the British Museum; it is the first known in England. It was brought by Mr. Bruce, and given to Sir Joseph Banks, who presented it to the British Museum.

[25] The white pebbles found on the banks of the Mersey, although not a pure quartz, answer the purpose perfectly well. It is singular, that the friction is invariably accompanied by a strong sulphureous smell.

[26] That this method of charming the serpentine race was practised at a very early period of antiquity, appears from the allusion of the holy Psalmist, in the 4th and 5th verses of the 58th Psalm.