Solinus has of course no allusion to St. Patrick's Purgatory; but in his celebrated work, 'Polyhistor', compiled, it is thought, chiefly from Pliny's Natural History, he has a remarkable chapter on Ireland. Some of his statements are doubtful, and all are very curious; one of them at least depriving St. Patrick, by anticipation, of one of his most famous miracles. This is the banishment of the serpents, which it appears was first mentioned by Jocelin in the twelfth century. It is expressly stated by Solinus, who wrote in the third century, that in Ireland "There are no snakes and few byrdes," to use the language of the old English translator, Arthur Golding. This statement of the previous exemption of Ireland from venomous reptiles was warmly disputed by Dr. David Rothe, the Bishop of Ossory, early in the seventeenth century. It will be remembered that "David Roto" has already been quoted as an authority on the subject of St. Patrick's Purgatory, and it is his collateral controversy with Solinus that probably led Montalvan, and subsequently Calderon, to suppose that Solinus had in some way alluded to that legend. A valuable 'Life of St. Patrick', by P. Lynch (Dublin, 1828), contains many allusions to this subject, of which the following may be given as an example. "The objections which Doctor Roth raised to the testimony of Solinus have as slender a foundation in reason. For Solinus (saith he) not only mentions thisexemption of Ireland from venomous creatures, but says further, that in Ireland there are few birds, and no bees; and therefore concludes, that as he is mistaken in these latter particulars, so he is not to be believed in the former,"-- p. 42. The author of this Life of St. Patrick goes on to say that Solinus may have been perfectly accurate in these statements. That other writers have alluded to the time when bees were first introduced into Ireland, and that the migration of some birds thither, among others the magpie, took place at a comparatively modern period. He does not add, however, that Solinus states that the very dust of Ireland was so distasteful to the bees, where they are now as much at home as in Hymettus, that if it is scattered about their hives even in another country they abandon their combs. Thus writes quaint Arthur Golding:-- "There is not any Bee among them, and if a man bring of the dust of the stones from thence, and strew them among Bee-hyves, the swarme forsake ye combes." Another misstatement of Solinus may be pointed out. He says:-- "The sea that is betweene Ireland and Britayne, being full of shallows and rough all the yeere long, cannot be sayled but a few dayes in the summer time." With the following picturesque passage referring to the warlike training of their children by the Irish, as recorded by a Roman writer in the third century of the Christian era, we take leave of Solinus, who we have no doubt was the author referred to by Montalvan and Calderon under the name of "Solino:"--