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 knight of Malta, finding on the Sicilian shores the three internal bones of one of the species of Bulla, of which some are found on the south-western coast of England, described and figured these bones most accurately, and drew the whole of the rest of the description from the stores of his own imagination.

Such frauds are far from justifiable; the only excuse which has been made for them is, when they have been practised on scientific academies which had reached the period of dotage. It should however be remembered, that the productions of nature are so various, that mere strangeness is very far from sufficient to render doubtful the existence of any creature for which there is evidence; and that, unless the memoir itself involves principles so contradictory, as to outweigh the evidence of a single witness, it