Page:Micrographia - or some physiological descriptions of minute bodies made by magnifying glasses with observations and inquiries thereupon.djvu/330

Rh  ghess) it affords us an Instance, whereof perhaps there are not many like in Nature, and that is, of the prodigious increase of these Creatures, after they are hatch'd and run about; for a common Wood-louse, of about half an inch long, is no less then a hundred and twenty five thousand times bigger then one of these, which though indeed it seems very strange, yet I have observed the young ones of some Spiders have almost kept the same proportion to their Dam.

This, methinks, if it be so, does in the next place hint a Quæry, which may perhaps deserve a little further examination: And that is, Whether there be not many of those minute Creatures, such as Mites, and the like, which, though they are commonly thought of otherwise, are only the pully, or young ones, of much bigger Insects, and not the generating, or parent Insect, that has layd those Eggs; for having many times observ'd those Eggs, which usually are found in great abundance where Mites are found, it seems something strange, that so small an Animal should have an Egg so big in proportion to its body. Though on the other side, I must confess, that having kept divers of those Mites inclosed in a box for a good while, I did not find them very much augmented beyond their usual bigness.

What the husk and cobweb of this little white substance should be, I cannot imagine, unless it be, that the old one, when impregnated with Eggs, should there stay, and fix it self on the Vine, and dye, and all the body by degrees should rot, save only the husk, and the Eggs in the body: And the heat, or fire, as it were, of the approaching Sun-beams should vivifie those Relicts of the corrupted Parent, and out of the ashes, as 'twere, (as it is fabled of the Phœnix) should raise a new offspring for the perpetuation of the species. Nor will the cobweb, as it were, in which these Eggs are inclos'd, make much against this Conjecture; for we may, by those cobwebs that are carried up and down the Air after a Fog (which with my Microscope I have discovered to be made up of an infinite company of small filaments or threads) learn, that such a texture of body may be otherwise made then by the spinning of a Worm.

Of these small Eels, which are to be found in divers sorts of Vinegar, I have little to add besides their Picture, which you may find drawn in the third Figure of the 25. Scheme: That is, they were shaped much like an Eel, save only that their nose A, (which was a little more opacous then the rest of their body) was a little sharper, and longer, in proportion to their body, and the wrigling motion of their body seem'd to be onely upwards and downwards, whereas that of Eels is onely side wayes: They seem'd to have a more opacous part Rh