Some books speak of seven, eight, nine, ten, and more, children at a birth. But these statements are so marvelous, so incredible, and unsupported by proper testimony, that they do not merit any degree of confidence. The climax of such extraordinary assertions is reached, and a good illustration of the credulity of the seventeenth century furnished, by a writer named Goftr. This traveller, in 1630, saw a tablet in a church at Leusdown (Lausdunum), about five miles from the Hague, with an inscription stating that a certain illustrious countess, whose name and family he records, brought forth at one birth, in the fortieth year of her age, in the year 1276, 365 infants. They were all baptized by Guido, the Suffragan. The males were called John, and the females Elizabeth. They all, with their mother, died on the same day, and were buried in the above-mentioned church. This monstrous birth was said to have been caused by the sin of the countess in insulting a poor woman with twins in her arms, who prayed that her insulter might have at one birth the same number of children as there were days in the year. Of course, notwithstanding the story being attested by a tablet in a church, it must be placed among the many other instances of superstition afforded by an ignorant and credulous era. We may remark, in closing this subject, that fewer plural births come to maturity than pregnancies with single children. Miscarriages are comparatively more frequent in such pregnancies than in ordinary ones. PREGNANCY _VENERATION FOR THE PREGNANT._