I shall here take occasion to remark, that Savary[65] has been guilty of an error, when he says that archil is cultivated in the Canary Islands in order to be sold as food for Canary birds. One may easily perceive that this mistake has arisen from his confounding that lichen used for dyeing with this kind of grass; and I should not have considered it worth notice, had it not been copied into Ludovici’s Dictionary of Trade, from which, perhaps, it may be copied into the works of others.
FOOTNOTES
[58] Gesneri Historiæ Animalium, liber tertius. Tiguri, 1555, fol. p. 234.
[59] Uccelliera, overo Discorso della natura di diversi Uccelli. Roma, 1622, 4to.
[60] Gesneri redivivi, aucti et emendati, tomus ii. Franc. 1669, fol. p. 62. More information respecting hybrids may be found in Brisson, Ornithologie, t. iii. p. 187; and Frisch, Vorstellung der Vögel in Teutschland, the twelfth plate of which contains several good figures.
[61] Coleri Œconomia ruralis et domestica. Franc. 1680, folio.
[62] Barrington’s paper in the Phil. Trans. vol. lxiii. p. 249.
[63] Phalaris Canariensis. The best figure and description of it are to be found in Schreber’s Beschreibung der Gräser, ii. p. 83, tab. x. 2.
[64] Lib. iii. c. 159, and lib. xxvii. c. 12.
[65] Dictionnaire de Commerce, t. v. 1765, fol. p. 1149.