1640. We now come to Parkinson's second book, 'The Theatre of Plants, or an Universal and Complete Herbal. Composed by John Parkinson, Apothecary of London and the King's Herbarist' - ('the King' being Charles I., at the time just preceding his execution). The frontispiece is quite as curious in its way as the one in the 'Paradisi in Sole.' It has a portrait of old Parkinson in a skull-cap, looking very wise and holding a flower that looks like a Gaillardia. In the middle of the page is the title, with Adam on one side, dressed in the skin of a beast and holding a very fine spade, like the spades used in France to this day. This, I imagine, represents Toil, while Wisdom is personified on the other side by Solomon. He is clad in the conventional dress of the kings of the Middle Ages-a long cloak, a cape of ermine, a spiked crown, a sceptre, bare legs, and a pair of Roman sandals. At the top of the page is the eye of God with a Hebrew word written below it. At the four corners are four female figures representing Europe, Asia, Africa, and America. Europe, only, is in a chariot drawn by a pair of horses. Asia, riding a rhinoceros, wears a very short skirt and curious, pointed, curled shoes, not unlike the slippers still worn in Turkey, and a stiff headdress that resembles those used by women in the thirteenth century. Africa has no clothes, only a hat, and rides a zebra. America has a bow and arrow, and rides, also without clothes, a curious long-eared sheep.

These ladies are surrounded by the vegetation supposed to be typical of each country. Among other plants, Asia has again the Vegetable Lamb before described, and Asia, not America, has the Indian Corn (Maize), which, I believe, is supposed to be as exclusively indigenous to America as Tobacco is. It appears to have been entirely unknown to the Old World, and has never been found with other corn in any of the old tombs, or alluded to in the classics. Its cultivation must have spread very quickly, and it is known all over the South of Europe as Ble de Turquie to this day. Turquie was the term used in the Middle Ages for describing anything foreign.

When the early discoverers of Canada went up the St. Lawrence and reached the rapids, which still bear the name of La Chine rapids, they thought they had reached the China seas and joined the continent of Asia.

It is, therefore, curious to note that Parkinson figures an American plant amongst the vegetation of Asia. The old Red Indian natives of North America used to sow the Maize with a fish on either side of the seed to propitiate their gods. No wonder it grew luxuriantly. Africa has in the foreground what appears to be a Stapelia, Aloes, and Date-palms. America has Cactuses, Pineapples, and the large Sunflower, being the vegetation rather of South than North America. As representing the geographical knowledge and art notions of the day, it is decidedly an interesting title-page. The woodcuts throughout the book are of the whole plant, root and all; but they are without much character, all about the same size, and less well-drawn than the flowers in the 'Paradisi.' The medical properties of the plants are described at length and with much detail, and are really curious. I wonder if our complicated prescriptions and remedies will some day sink to the level which the science of herbs has reached to-day. It would not be so very surprising if this should happen, considering how much the faith put in the modern drugs resembles the belief in cures as described in these old Herbals. At the Museum there is a great collection of Herbals of all nationalities, especially German. They are all much of the same kind, and illustrated in the same way as this one of Parkinson's, leading one to conjecture that the medical science throughout Europe at this time was about on a level.

1633. 'The Herbal or General Historic of Plants gathered by John Gerarde, of London, Master in Chirur-gerie.' This edition of Gerarde's Herbal appeared between the publication of Parkinson's two books just described, but it is a reprint of an earlier edition, very much enlarged and amended by Thomas Johnson, citizen and apothecary. The frontispiece is stately and serious. The title is on a shield in the middle, with a column on each side dividing it from two draped figures, Theophrastus on the left and Dioscorides on the right. Above these two figures, but divided from them by a line, are Ceres and Pomona, both fully draped. Ceres has a sheaf of wheat in her arms, and behind her grows the Indian corn. A ploughed field is spread out in the distance on her left. In the middle, between these figures, are growing plants and flowers and an orchard. At the bottom of the page is a fine portrait of Gerarde, holding a flower I do not recognise. He is dressed in the correct costume and ruffle of Charles I. On each side of him the spaces are filled by two vases of different shape and design, in which are various flowers arranged in a stiff and formal manner, typical of flower arrangements in that time and long after, as we see depicted by art in this and other countries. Nowhere on the page does there appear any representation of the Vegetable Lamb, nor can I find any reference to it in the text. On the other hand, however, there is an elaborate allusion to what Mr. Lee describes in his book on the Vegetable Lamb, before mentioned, as the companion superstition of the Barnacle Geese. Gerarde gives a most interesting and detailed account-too long, alas ! for me to quote-of having seen the barnacles and watched their development into tree-geese. He corroborates his own observation by quoting the like experience of others. He also states in all gravity that ■ the shells wherein is bred the barnacle are taken up in a small island adjoining to Lancashire, half a mile from the mainland, called the Pile of Foulders.' Mr. Lee says:-'The growth and development of the story of "the Scythian Lamb" from the similarity of appearance of two really different objects may be best explained by comparing it with another natural-history myth which ran curiously parallel to it. I allude to the fable that Sir John Mandeville tells us he related to his Tartar acquaintances, viz., that of the "Barnacle Geese," which has never been surpassed as a specimen of ignorant credulity and persistent error.