Some Observations Made by Mr. Paschall, on the Motions of Diseases, and on the Births and Deaths of Men, and Other Animals in Different Times of the?????

I. A Query put by Dr. N. Grew, concerning the Food of the Humming Bird; occasioned by the Description of it in the Transactions. Numb. 200. SIR, Since I shewed you the Description of the Humming Bird; with the Letter in which it came to me: I learn, that Mr. Hamersly of Coventry is the Author of it. You see it is believed he feeds on some Juice he sucks off, or out of Flowers. It was believed for a long while, that the Bird of Paradice had no Legs. Whether may not this Bird rather feed on small Insects, whereon many Birds feed, some whereof lie in the bottom of most Flowers, and for which, this Bird hath a Bill? Whereas a Bee that sucks hath a Siphon or hollow Probe. In short; the Bird should be open'd: And so it will appear, either that he hath Entrails fitted only for Liquids; or the same sort of Stomachs and Guts as other Birds, containing the same sort of solid Food. II. Some Observations made by Mr. Paschall, on the Motions of Diseases, and on the Births and Deaths of Men, and other Animals in different times of the Nuxthmeev. Some Months since I fell into a Suspicion, that the Causes of Tides at Sea do also continually exert their Power in other places, though the Effects thereof may may not be so sensibly perceived on the solid as the fluid parts of this Terraqueous Globe. That I might in the best way I could think of, make some tryal towards a discovery of the Truth herein, I took this Method. First, I divided the Nuxthysery into four Senaries of Hours: The first consisted of three Hours before the Southing of the Moon, and three after the second of the six hours following, and so the third and fourth contained the two remaining Quarters of the Natural day. I next betook myself to observe Births and Deaths, in our own kind, as also in other Species of Animals, whether they fell out indifferently in any of these four Senaries: And I found none that were born or died a natural Death in the first and third Senaries, which I take liberty to call first and second Tides, but every one either in the second or fourth Senaries, which I call first and second Ebbs. I then proceeded to make Observations in the Motions of Diseases, which I could the better do, because I had some in my Family visited with Agues. Here I found that the tumult of the Fits generally lasted all the Tiding time, and then went off in gentle kindly Sweats in the Ebbs. I went on then to take notice of the Sex res non naturales, and alterations of the Weather, and such Accounts as I could meet with of Earthquakes and sundry other things: And I have yet met nothing to hinder me from laying down this as a Maxim, That Motion, Vigour, Action, Strength, &c. appear most and do best in the Tiding Senaries; and that Rest, Relaxation, Decay, Dissolution belong to the Ebbing Senaries.