Page:Micrographia - or some physiological descriptions of minute bodies made by magnifying glasses with observations and inquiries thereupon.djvu/274

Rh not appear so rounded, and lying above the Paper, as it were, as it ought to do) that is, it was for the most part pretty oval end-ways, somewhat like an Egg, but the other way it was a little flatted on two opposite sides. Divers of these Eggs, as is common to most others, I found to be barren, or addle, for they never afforded any young ones. And those I usually found much whiter then the other that were prolifick. The Eggs of other kinds of Oviparous Insects I have found to be perfectly round every way, like so many Globules, of this sort I have observ'd some sorts of Spiders Eggs; and chancing the last Summer to inclose a very large and curiously painted Butterfly in a Box, intending to examine its gaudery with my Microscope, I found within a day or two after I inclos'd her, almost all the inner surface of the Box cover'd over with an infinite of exactly round Eggs, which were stuck very fast to the sides of it, and in so exactly regular and close an order, that made me call to mind my Hypothesis, which I had formerly thought on for the making out of all the regular Figures of Salt, which I have elsewhere hinted; for here I found all of them rang'd into a most exact triagonal order, much after the manner as the Hemispheres are place on the eye of a Fly; all which Eggs I found after a little time to be hatch'd, and out of them to come a multitude of small Worms, very much resembling young Silk-worms, leaving all their thin hollow shells behind them, sticking on the Box in their triagonal posture; these I found with the Microscope to have much such a substance as the Silk-worms Eggs, but could not perceive them pitted. And indeed, there is as great a variety in the shape of the Eggs of Oviparous Insects as among those of Birds.

Of these Eggs, a large and lusty Fly will at one time lay neer four or five hundred, so that the increase of these kind of Insects must needs be very prodigious, were they not prey'd on by multitudes of Birds, and destroy'd by Frosts and Rains; and hence 'tis those hotter Climates between the Tropicks are infested with such multitudes of Locusts, and such other Vermine.

This kind of Fly, whereof a Microscopical Picture is delineated in the first Figure of the 26. Scheme, is a very beautifull creature, and has many things about it very notable; divers of which I have already partly describ'd, namely, the feet, wings, eyes, and head, in the preceding Observations.

And though the head before describ'd be that of a grey Drone-Fly, yet for the main it is very agreeable to this. The things wherein they differ most, will be easily enough found by the following particulars:

First, the clusters of eyes of this Fly, are very much smaller then those of the Dron-Fly, in proportion to the head. Rh