nary a manner, that at the age of five years he measured four feet three inches; fome months after he was four feet eleven inches; and at fix, five feet, and bulky in proportion. His growth was fo rapid that one, might fancy he faw him grow: every month his cloaths required to be made longer and wider; and what was ftill very extraordinary in his growth, it was not preceded by any fickness, nor accompanied by any pain in the groin or elsewhere, and no complaint was made, or any inconveniency but hunger, which the child was very fenfible of from one meal to another, At the age of five years his voice changed, his beard began to appear, and at fix he had as much as a man of thirty; in fhort, all the unquestionable marks of puberty were visible in him. It was not doubted in the country but that this child was, at five years old, or five and a half, in a condition of begetting other children; which induced the rector of the parish to recommend to his mother that she would keep him from too familiar a converfation with children of the other fex. Though his wit was riper than is commonly obfervable at the age of five or fix years, yet its progrefs was not in proportion to that of his body. His air and manner ftill retained fomething childish, though by his bulk and ftature he refembled a complete man, which at first fight produced a very fingular contraft. However, it might be faid that all was uniform in him, and he might be confidered as an adult, though ftill far from being fo; his voice was ftrong and man ly, and few heard him fpeak with. out fome emotion and furprize. His great ftrength rendered him already fit for, the labours of the country. At the age of five years he could carry to a good distance three measures of rye, weighing eighty-four pounds; when turned of fix, he could lift up eafily on his fhoulders, and carry loads of a hundred and fifty pounds weight a good way off; and these exercises were exhibited by him as often as the curious engaged him thereto by fome liberality. Such beginnings made people think that young Viala would foon fhoot up into a giant. A mountebank was already foliciting his parents for him, and flattering them with hopes of putting him in a way of making a great fortune. But all thefe fine hopes fuddenly vanished. His legs became crooked, his body fhrunk, his ftrength diminished, and his voice grew fenfibly weaker. This fad alteration was attributed to the imprudent trials he was let to make of his ftrength; perhaps alfo it was occafioned by nature's fuffering in fo rapid an extenfion. He is now juft as he was at the age of fix or feven years, and in a kind of imbecility. His parents were rather under the middle fize, and their growth had nothing particular in it. Noel Fifchet, another fwift grower of the human fpecies, began to grow fooner, but not fo rapidly, for he was twelve years old before he measured five feet; his figns of puberty were at the age of two years, which makes between them a very remarkable difference; and the flower pro grefs grefs of his growth was perhaps the cause of his not experiencing the bad confequences that attended Viala. It is aftonishing that children of fo prodigious and early a growth. do not afterwards become giants; yet it is not perhaps fo fingular, if they have at the fame time the figns of puberty. These fhew, in all animals, that they are approaching their state of perfection. Thus, when they appear in children at the fame time that they fhoot up in fo extraordinary a manner, they prove perhaps nothing more than a mere rapid expanfion, as in hot climates; but not that the individual will be of a gigantic ftature. For this purpose it would be neceffary that puberty, inftead of accompanying this great growth, fhould not manifeft itself till the ufual time, or perhaps after. into the meaning of it. The watermen told us they were fearching the holes in the cliff for fwallows or martins which took refuge in them, and lodged there all the winter, until warm weather, and then they came abroad again. The boys, being let down by their comrades to the holes, put in a long rammer with a screw at the end, fuch as is used to unload guns, and twifting it about, drew out the birds. For a trifle I procured fome of them. When I first had them, they feemed stiff and lifeless. I put one in my bofom between my fkin and fhirt, and laid another on a board, the fun fhining full and warm upon it: one or two of my companions did the like. That in my bofom revived in about a quarter of an hour; feeling it move, I took it out to look at it, and faw it ftretch itself on my hand, but perceiving it not fufficiently come to itfelf, I put it in again. In about another quarter, feeling it flutter pretty brifkly, I took it out and admired it. Being now perfectly recovered, before I was aware it took its flight; the covering of the boat prevented me from feeing where it went. The bird on the board, though expofed to a full fun, yet, I prefume, from a chillinefs in the air, did not revive to be able to fly. Remarks by Mr. Collinson. What I collect from this gentleman's relation is, that it was the practice of the boys annually to take thefe birds, by their apparatus and ready method of doing it; and the frequency of it was no remarkable thing to the watermen. 1 HE beginning of last month TH I received a letter from our learned and ingenious member, Dr. Huxham of Plymouth; in which, among other things, he informed me that he lately had, by permiffion of commiffioner Rogers, obtained a fight of what is called the vegetable fly, with the following defcription of it, both which he had from Mr. Newman, an officer of general Duroure's regiment, who came from the island Dominica. As this defcription feemed to the doctor exceedingly curious, he has fent it me, exactly tranfcribed from Mr. Newman's account, and is as follows: "The vegetable fly is found in the ifland Dominica, and (except ing that it has no wings) refembles the drone both in fize and colour more than any other English infect. In the month of May it buries itself in the earth, and begins to vegetate. By the latter end of July the tree is arrived at its full growth, and refembles a coral branch, and is about three inches high, and bears feveral little pods, which dropping off be Though the doctor can by no means think the above relation true in all its circumftances, yet he is perfuaded there is fomething of reality in it, which perhaps further accounts and obfervations may fet in a full and true light, though at prefent, as reprefented, it feems quite repugnant to the ufual order of nature. As I had never feen this production myfelf, but had been informed that doctor Hill had had the examination of fome of them, I wrote to that gentleman to defire to be informed of the refult of his inquiries; to which he very obligingly fent me the following anfwer: tinique; and in its nympha ftate, in which the old authors call it tettigometra, it buries itself under dead leaves to wait its change; and when the feafon is unfavourable, many perish. The feeds of the clavaria find a proper bed on this dead infect, and grow. The tettigometra is among the cicada in the British Museum; the clavaria is juft now known. This you may be affured is the fact, and all the fact; though the untaught inhabitants fuppofe a fly to vegetate; and though there exifts a Spanish drawing of the plant's growing into a trifoliate tree; and it has been figured with the creature flying with this tree upon its back. So wild are the imaginations of man! So chafte and uniform is nature !" Commiffioner Rogers, at Dr. Huxham's defire, has prefented this extraordinary production to the Royal Society, and it now lies be fore you. A careful examination of it feems to confirm to me at leaft Dr. Hill's opinion of the manner of this phænomenon's being produced. The ingenious Mr. Edwards has taken notice of this extraordinary production in his Gleanings of Natural Hiftory, and has given us a figure of it in that elegant work. There is in the British Museum, among the cicade, one nearly refembling the animal part of the production before you; but it came from the Eaft Indies. There is likewife, from the Weft Indies, in its perfect or winged ftate, the infect of which this produc tion is believed to be the nympha. Nov. 15, 1763. An account of a remarkable Fish, taken in King Road, near Bristol. In a letter from Mr. James Ferguson to Thomas Birch, D. D. Secretary to the Royal Society. From the Philosophical Transactions for 1763. Bristol, May 5, 1763. HE length of the fish is four THE feet nine inches, and its thickness where greateft, or in the middle, about 15 inches. The mouth is a foot in width, and of a fquarifh form: it has three rows of fharp fmall teeth, very irregularly fet, and at fome diftance from each other: it has no tongue nor narrow gullet, but is all the way down, as far as one can fee, like a great hollow tube: in the back of the mouth within, there are two openings like noftrils; and about nine inches below the jaw, and under these openings, are two large knobs, from which proceed feveral fhort teeth; a little below which, on the breast fide, is another knob with fuch teeth. On each fide within, and about a foot below the jaws, there are three crofs ribs fomewhat refembling the ftreight bars of a chimney grate, about an inch diftant from each other; through which we fee into a great cavity within the fkin, towards the breaft; and under the fkin, these cavities are kept diftended by longitudinal ribs, plain to the touch on the outfide. I put my arm down through the mouth quite to my fhoulder, but could feel nothing nothing in the way; fo that its heart, ftomach, and bowels muft lie in a very little compafs near its tail, the body thereabout being very small. From the neck proceed two long horns, hard and very elaftic, not jointed by rings as in lobfters; and on each fide of the back there are two confiderable fharp-edged rifings of a black and long fubftance. Between each eye and the breaft there is a cavity fomewhat like the infide of a human ear, but it doth not penetrate to the infide. From each fhoulder proceeds a ftrong mufcular fin, clofe by which, towards the breast, is an opening, through which one may thruft his hand and arm quite up through the mouth; and between these fins proceed from the breaft two fhort paws, fomewhat like the fore half of a human foot, with five toes joined together, having the appearance of nails. Near the tail are two large fins, one on the back, the other under the belly. The skin is of a dark brown colour, but darker spotted in feveral places, and entirely without fcales. in which particular vegetables are fpontaneously produced, we fhalf immediately discover a fure and fuccefsful method of cultivating them by art. Linnæus juftly obferves, in a curious paper upon this fubject, in the firft volume of the Swedish Acts, that the directions given in many books of gardening are founded merely on random practice; it being from wild plants alone that a rational method of culture can be deduced. He adds, that all plants grow fomewhere wild, and that the bufinefs of art is to imitate their natural climate, or the joint concurrence of earth, air, water, and heat. The earths or foils in which ve getables grow are far from being fuch fimple bodies as moft people apprehend. They are compounded of all the kinds of mineral earths, together with that into which animal and vegetable fubftances themselves are refolved by putrefaction, and blended together in various proportions. They may, however, be commodiously ranged, in regard to the prefent enquiry, into four claffes, according to the particular ingredients which prevails in the compofition clayey, chalky, fandy, including those which abound Nature the best mistress in Hus- either with fand itself, or with fuch other earthy or ftony particles, as do not in the leaft imbibe, or are affected by water; and black vegetable and animal mold. Each of thefe foils produces plants peculiar to itself, and which degenerate or perifh in others. It is on fandy hills that the fir and other refinous trees attain to their vigour, and fhed the turpentines and balfams: the galleopfes, |