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FISHES.

claw, exactly resembling that of a bird of prey. Every head was fet to work to explain the cause of this wondrous phenomenon. The effects of fright, of conceit on the minds of the female, human and brute, in the ftate of pregnancy, was then confidered, and all the various, inftances of monftrous productions. I have heard of a duckling, which, to the furprize of a grave family, waddled from its neft with a long ferpentine tail instead of its natural rump. This was. readily refolved into a fright the mother-duck took, at finding, when it went once to lay, a fnake coiled up in the neft, as was a real fact. I confulted the learned, but found the doctrine of terror and fancy totally exploded. I then confulted the Memoirs of the Royal Academy of Sciences at Brobdingnag; and, to my inexpreffible fatisfaction, found that the opinion of that illuftrious body coincided with my own: fo I put down this uncommon accident as no more than a Relplum Scalcath, or, in the modern phrafe, a lufus naturæ..

THE tides recede here fo very far as to deny us any variety of fish. The fpecies moft plentiful are of the flat kind, fuch as flounders, a few plaice, fmall foles, and rays.. Dabs visit us in November. Smear Dabs, Br. Zool. iii. N° 106, also visit our fea; and in the last year was taken that rare fpecies of flounder. the whiff, the figure of which is given in the British Zoology, N° 111.

THAT turbots of a large fize are found in our neighborhood, is evident; twice in my life I had one brought to me which weighed twenty two pounds. There have been a few others. taken here of the fame fize, but the inftances are rare.

VARIOUS

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VARIOUS other fishes are taken off our coaft accidentally. Among them is the Fifhing Frog, or Angler, Br. Zool. iii. N° 51. And once a large Angel or Monk (Br. Zool. iii. N° 39.) fish got into my fisherman's nets. The inan was very poor, I therefore thought he might get a little money by exhibiting it' at Chefter. I gave him a few inftructions, and drew up for him a curious advertisement; but the rogue went beyond his inftructions, for as foon as he arrived in the city, he fent the bellman about to notify his arrival, and that of his wonderful monfter; fignifying that Squire Pennant had confulted all his Books, and could not find the like. His fuccefs. was great, for he got ten pounds by the curiofity of the good people of Chester. When the fmell grew intolerable, he fold it to another poor per-fon, who stuffed the fkin, and diftended it to a most dreadful form, and carried it to Worcester, and the internal parts of England, where I doubt not his fuccefs was equal to that of poor Thomas: Hudsfield.

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To be feen at the upper White Bear, in Bridge-Street, in this
'City, (now in its Road to the ROYAL SOCIETY)
'THE STUPENDOUS SEA MONSTER,
Taken alive on the Coafts of North Wales.

'I'r is the most an azing prodigy the great deep ever produced, being headed 1ke a bull-dog, mouthed like the ravenous fharke, and armed with a four-fold row of teeth. It has a 'breast like the human kind, wings like thofe of an eagle, and a

ANGEL FISH.

STING RAY.

tail very like that of a fish. It could fly, walk, and swim, and was fo fierce as to keep three men at bay for two hours, before it could be taken.

THIS amazing monster has given the greatest fatisfaction to all that have viewed it; and may now be feen at the small expence of three-pence.

'N. B.-THE Proprietor of this wonder is willing to oblige perfons, by bringing it to their houses, on paying double ' price.'

THAT rare fpecies of fish the Sting Ray, Br. Zool. iii. N° 38, is fometimes taken in our channel. It is greatly dreaded by our fishermen, on account of the dangerous fpine iffuing from the tail, with which it might give a mortal wound. From the British Zoology, I fhall add, that the terror of its weapon fupplied the antients with many tremendous fables relating to it. Pliny, Elian, and Oppian, have given it a venom that affects even the inanimate creation. Trees that are ftruck by it instantly lose their verdure, and perish, and rocks themselves are incapable of refifting the potent poison.

THE enchantrefs Circe armed her fon with a fpear, headed with the fpine of the trygon, a species of fting-ray, as the most irresistible weapon fhe could furnish him with, and with which he afterwards committed parricide, unintentionally, on his father Ulyffes. But we need not dive into antiquity for the fatal application of the spine of fome of the ray genus. The inhabitants of certain parts of South America, and of fome of the new-difcovered islands in the Pacific Ocean, ftill head their fpears with the fpines

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of the congenerous kinds, which prove far more tremendous than thofe pointed with iron, in ufe among the European warriors.

THE Herring in this fea is extremely defultory. At times HERRING. they appear in vaft fhoals, even as high as Chefter; arrive in the month of November, and continue till February; and are fol

lowed by multitudes of fmall veffels, which enliven the chan

nel. Great quantities are taken, and falted; but are generally fhotten and meagre. The last time in which they appeared

here in quantities was in the year 1766 and 1767.

A few Anchovies, Br. Zool. iii. N° 163, have been taken off ANCHOVY. this parish, particularly in 1769. Ray, in his Philofophical Letters, p. 47, faw fome at Chester in the

year 1669.

THE Argentine, Br. Zool. ii. N° 156, a very rare fish, not much above two inches long, has also been taken in our channel.

In my father's younger days, Cod fish, of confiderable fizes, and in vaft quantities, were taken on the back of the Hyle fands,

but have deferted the place beyond my memory.

THE Weever, Br. Zool. iii. N° 71, is very common here, and WEEVER. equally dreaded in these parts as they are on the different shores of England. Pliny, lib. ix. c. 27, 48; and Ælian, lib. ii. c. 50. mentions this fpecies, its dorfal fpine, and its dangerous effects, under the name of Draco; and Pliny again under that of Araneus

OUR fhore is not productive of any variety of crustacea, or of fhells. We have the cancer manas, or the common crab; and the cancer crangon, or fhrimp. The laft is here fo peculiarly delicious, that had Apicius failed from Minturne to the Flintshire fhores, to have feafted on them, as he did to those of the Sinus

Hipponenfis

151

PLANTS.

Hipponens, in Africa, to indulge on the congenerous locust* of that fea, he would not inftantly have returned indignant, as he did from thence, at finding himself deceived in the report of their excellency, but remained on our coaft, wallowing in epicurifm the whole of the happy season.

As to shells, we have only one fpecies, we can call new, the tro- . chus ulva, Br. Zool. iv. N° 120. tab. lxxxvi. fig. 120. It is very small, not exceeding the size of a grain of wheat, confifts of four fpires, the firft fwelling: the color deep brown. These are found in great numbers, lodged in the ulva lauca, on our fhores.

AMONG the rarer plants of our parish, are the lithofpermium arvenfe, Syft. Pl. i. 385. Corn Gromwell, or baftard Alkanet, Gerard, 610.

Anchufa fempervirens, Syft. Pl. i. 389. Never-dying borage, Gerard, 797.

Phellandrium aquaticum, Syft. Pl. 701. Flor. Scot. i. 163. Common water hemlock, Gerard, 1063.

Campanula latifolia, Syft. Pl. 1458. Giant throat-wort, Gerard, 448.

Chlora perfoliata, Syft. Pl. ii. 161. Flor. Scot. p. 200. Yellow centorie, Gerard, 547. Elegant, and rather scarce.

Trifolium fragiferum, Syft. Pl. 559. Strawberry trefoil, Gerard, 1208.

Tragopogon pratenfe, Syft. Pl. iii. 611. Flor. Scot. 426. Purple goat's beard, Gerard, 735.

Rondel. Pifc. p. 535.

THE

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