[60] Gesneri redivivi, aucti et emendati, tomus ii. Franc. 1669, fol. p. 62. More information respecting hybrids may be found in Brisson, Ornithologie, t. iii. p. 187; and Frisch, Vorstellung der Vögel in Teutschland, the twelfth plate of which contains several good figures. [61] Coleri Œconomia ruralis et domestica. Franc. 1680, folio. [62] Barrington’s paper in the Phil. Trans. vol. lxiii. p. 249. [63] _Phalaris Canariensis._ The best figure and description of it are to be found in Schreber’s Beschreibung der Gräser, ii. p. 83, tab. x. 2. [64] Lib. iii. c. 159, and lib. xxvii. c. 12. [65] Dictionnaire de Commerce, t. v. 1765, fol. p. 1149. ARCHIL. Under the names Orseille, Orceille, Orsolle, Ursolle, Orcheil, Orchel, in Italian Oricello[66], Orcella, Roccella, in Dutch Orchillie, and in English Archil, Canary weed or Orchilla weed, is understood a lichen used for dyeing, and from which a kind of paint is also prepared. This species of lichen, of which the best figure and a full description may be seen in Dillenius[67], is by Linnæus called _Lichen roccella_. It is found in abundance in some of the islands near the African coast, particularly in the Canaries, and in several of the islands in the Archipelago. It grows upright, partly in single partly in double stems, which are about two inches in height. When it is old these stems are crowned with a button, sometimes round and sometimes of a flat form, which Tournefort very properly compares to the excrescences on the arms of the Sepia. Its colour is sometimes a light, and sometimes a dark gray. Of this lichen with lime, urine, ammoniacal salts, or a solution of ammonia prepared by distillation, is formed a dark red paste, which in commerce has the same name, and which is much used in dyeing. That well-known substance called litmus is also made of it. Theophrastus[68], Dioscorides[69], and their transcriber Pliny[70], give the name of _Phycos thalassion_ or _pontion_ to a plant which, notwithstanding its name, is not a sea-weed but a lichen, as it grew on the rocks of different islands, and particularly on those of Crete or Candia. It had in their time been long used for dyeing wool, and the colour it gave when fresh was so beautiful, that it excelled the ancient purple, which was not red, as many suppose, but violet. Pliny tells us, that with this lichen dyers gave the ground or first tint to those cloths which they intended to dye with the costly purple. At least I so understand, with Hardouin and others, the words _conchyliis substernitur_, which the French dyers express by the phrase _donner le pied_.