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 gible to ordinary understandings. These may be classed under the heads of hoaxing, forging, trimming, and cooking.

Of Hoaxing. This, perhaps, will be better explained by an example. In the year 1788, M. Gioeni, a knight of Malta, published at Naples an account of a new family of Testacea, of which he described, with great minuteness, one species, the specific name of which has been taken from its habitat, and the generic he took from his own family, calling it Gioenia Sicula. It consisted of two rounded triangular valves, united by the body of the animal to a smaller valve in front. He gave figures of the animal, and of its parts; described its structure, its mode of advancing along the sand, the figure of the tract it left, and estimated the velocity of its course at about two-thirds of an inch per minute. He then described the structure of the shell, which he treated with nitric acid, and found it approach nearer to the nature of bone than any other shell.

The editors of the Encyclopédie Methodique, have copied this description, and have given figures of the Gioenia Sicula. The fact, however, is, that no such animal exists, but that the