This volume had its origin in a post-prandial discourse delivered in 1926 before the "Sette of Odd Volumes", and was intended to see the light as one of the Opuscula issued by that Society by and to its members. In the process of preparing that discourse, the author made discovery of a vast number of references to the subject in the works of early zoologists, botanists and thaumatogenists, constituting a veritable literature of the subject, and as the result, the present compilation ensued. Illustrated.