х A lilac upon a sage tree A syringa upon lilac or tree-mallow A rose elder upon syringa An water elder upon rose elder Paleurus upon hawthorn Polemonium upon genista hispanica Nor are we to rest in the frustrated success of some single experiments, but to proceed in attempts in the most unlikely unto iterated and certain conclusions, and to pursue the way of ablactation or inarching. Whereby we might determine whether, according to the ancients, no fir, pine, or picea, would admit of any insition upon them; whether yew will hold society with none; whether walnut, mulberry, and cornel cannot be propagated by insition, or the fig and quince admit almost of any, with many others of doubtful truths in the propagations. And while we seek for varieties in stocks and scions, we are not to omit the ready practise of the scion upon its own tree. Whereby, having a sufficient number of good plants, we may improve their fruits without translative conjunction, that is, by insition of the scion upon his own mother, whereby an handsome variety or melioration seldom faileth-we might be still advanced by iterated insitions in proper boughs and positions. Insition is also made not only with scions and buds, but seeds, by inserting them in cabbage stalks, turnips, onions, &c., and also in ligneous plants. Within a mile of this city of Norwich, an oak groweth upon the head of a pollard willow, taller than the stock, and about half a foot in diameter, probably by some acorn falling or fastening upon it. I could shew you a branch of the same willow which shoots forth near the stock which beareth both willow and oak twigs and leaves upon it. In a meadow I use in Norwich, beset with willows and sallows, I have observed these plants to grow upon their heads; bylders,* currants, gooseberries, cynocrambe, or dog's mercury, barberries, bittersweet, elder, hawthorn. Bylders.] Qu. bilberry? [FRAGMENTS.1] [BIBL. BODL. MS. RAWL. LVIII, 5 & 15.] [Part of a Lecture.] CETACEOUS animals, as whales, grampusses, dolphins, though they live in water are not without lungs. I shall instance in the dolphin, as having had the opportunity to be at the dissection of two of them. The lungs are in situation and figure like those of viviparous quadrupeds, but not so spongy, and of a thicker and flesh-like substance, and probably they may have a strong and forcible respiration. And because they live and feed in the water, Providence hath provided them with an Auλos, fistula, or spout, by which both air may be admitted and water ejected, which hath been taken in at the mouth; so that if they be kept too long under water they perish. Now because this remarkable passage is so variously delivered by writers, it may not be improper from ocular view to state something in this point. Pliny delivers that this fistula is on the back; Aristotle, in his History of Animals, placeth it also in the back. Julius Scaliger, in his comment upon that place, hath these words. "Aut delphinum ignoravit Aristoteles aut nos; nam quos in Adriatico quos in oceano Britannico vidimus fistulam versus occiput habent," have the fistula toward the occiput. Bellonius saith it is between the eyes, and Rondeletius above the Now that you may experimentally behold who is in the truth, and who widest from it; that you may see that sight is the best judge; and indeed that you may doubt no more, I shall produce the skull of a dolphin; wherein you may observe this passage contrived by nature and its situation; not on the back as Aristotle and Pliny affirmed; not clearly enough expressed by Scaliger, when he saith 'versus occiput; nor sufficiently by Bellonius between the eyes; but rather as Rondeletius de piscibus; "post rostrum sive supra rostrum fistulam habet geminam quæ ad caput asperæ arteriæ pertingit interius:" you may see its situation about the rostrum, but the ductus is double and divided by a septum osseum, that it somewhat resembleth the foramina descending from the nostrils unto the palate. This ductus is filled with a soft carnous substance, which openeth on the outside with a single orifice, resembling an old Greek sigma, or our letter C, at which the water is spouted out. (In the Chapter of Echoes, &c.) It would be of no small moment and curiosity to contrive a whispering place; for if the arching be elliptical, made by a line of a double centre, denoting the two foci of the ellipsis, these whispering places may be made. For in the longest diameter of an ellipsis there are two points, named the foci, always equi-distant from the centre, from one whereof if a line be drawn unto the circumference so reflecting, that the angle of reflection be equal unto that of incidence, they will reflect unto the other focus, and so the sound be conveyed unto him whose ear lieth at it. And therefore if we whisper at one focus, all the vocal rays which are carried unto the circumference of the ellipsis, are, by reflexion, all ended in the other focus; and by the multitude and union of these reflected rays, the voice be strongly heard at the other extreme, or focus; not easily in the middle, unto which one the ray only arriveth. Nor to rest in the bare ..... or fabric, but upon the same to inscribe the mechanical draught, wherein lie the causes and reasons of this admirable effect; the figure being drawn in red or blue, extending the whole length of the arch, and each focus denoted by some mark or special colour, whereat may stand two figures of cupids, boys, or handsome draughts, with the mouth to one focus, the ear unto the other, according to the rule which containeth the mystery of this effect. |