ut that from the middle of the upper part of the fruit, there
juts out a sort of small needle.

The shell being taken off, the nut is found to be hard, ligneous,
oblong, of unequal surface, furrowed, and of a chesnut yellow. One of
its extremities is roundish, and the other, by the reunion and
prolongation of three sorts of tubercles, terminates in a point; those
protuberances being so formed, that the middlemost placed between the
two others, has the appearance of a nose, and the two lateral
protuberances resemble flat lips. On each side of that which forms what
we call the nose, a small hole or nook is perceived, capable of
containing a pea; but does not penetrate deep, and is surrounded with
black filaments, sometimes like eye-brows and eyelashes, so that the nut
on that side resembles an ape or a hare.

This _lusus naturae_, or sport of nature, has a very pretty effect, but
is oftener found in stones than other substances. A great variety of
such rare and singular productions of nature may be seen at the British
Museum: but nothing can be more extraordinary in this respect than what
is related concerning the agate of Pyrrhus, which represented,
naturally, Apollo holding a lyre, with the nine muses distinguished each
by their attributes. In all probability, there is great exaggeration in
this fact, for we see nothing of the kind that comes near this
perfection. However, it is said, that, at Pisa, in the church of St.
John, there is seen, on a stone, an old hermit perfectly painted by
nature, sitting near a rivulet, and holding a bell in his hand; and
that, in the temple of St. Sophia, at Constantinople, there is to be
seen, on a white sacred marble, an image of St. John the Baptist,
cloaked with a camel's skin, but so far defective that nature has given
him but one foot.

There is an instance in the Mercury of France, for July 1730, of some
curious sports of nature on insects. The rector of St. James at Land,
within a league of Rennes, found in the month of March, 1730, in the
church-yard, a species of butterfly, about two inches long, and
half-an-inch broad, having on its head the figure of a death's-head, of
the length of one nail, and perfectly imitating those that are
represented on the church ornaments which are used for the office of the
dead. Two large wings were spotted like a pall, and the whole body
covered with a down, or black hair, diversified with black and yellow,
bearing some resemblance to yellow.