Primary tabs
Transcription
[Page 3]
of most of which particularly ye more rare I have taken drawings, & have either the skin stuffed or the animal preserved in spirits, among others a very large Vulture shot on Parnassus. I have taken lists of their modern names in different places & collected some Observations on the Migrations of Birds. The modern Greek names particularly those of the trees & larger plants are nearly the same of those of the Ancient Botanists tho' only somewhat corrupted in the Termination. I found the Greek Papas often much better Communicators on Dioscorides than Matthiolus & the modern uses both economical & superstitious, more explanatory than the sage comments of his various Editors thus the Aron of Dioscorides is not the Arum Maculatum but the Arum [undecipherable] a very common [indecipherable] in Cypress. Stalk & Root eaten by the Cypriots [?] & called Agno Colocasia - the [indecipherable] leptospernum [?] is not the 2 species of Sedum but the Semp. sediforme a very common plant in all the Greek Islands, tho' the Habitat unnoticed by Linnaeus. The Comaros of D. is the Arbutus Andrachne not the Aunedo - the former is a very common Plant in Cyprus & the Inhabitants of the Monatari of Tasos [?] know it as their ordinary Fuel, in a very minute investigation of that Island I did not see a single specimen of the sp. Unedo, the Helleborus [undecipherable] or the Black Hellebore of the Ancients is certainly not the Helleb. niger of Linneus but I think a distinct species tho' it bears a great Resemblance to the Hell. viridis. I observed it on the [undecipherable] Olympus in Thessaly Negropont [Negroponte] & the Peloponnese where it is called [undecipherable] & used by the Greeks as a Purgative.