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,[1] 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[2] 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,[3] as to outweigh the evidence of a single witness, it
- ↑ Bulla lignaria.
- ↑ The number of vertebræ in the neck of the plesiosaurus is a strange but ascertained fact.
- ↑ The kind of contradiction which is here alluded to, is that which arises from well ascertained final causes; for instance, the ruminating stomach of the hoofed animals, is in no case combined with the claw-shaped form of the extremities, frequent in many of the carniverous animals, and necessary to some of them for the purpose of seizing their prey.
