S6 Dr. Latham'* Obfervathm on the Spinning Limax. 



from an height fecurely to the ground, by means of a thread of its 

 own conftruaion, fecms manifefl ; for, on my friend's putting one 

 of them on the projecting frame of a window, it immediately 

 crawled forwards till it came to the proje&ing angle, from whence, 

 without attempting to fix itfelf by its fore parts to any thing, it bel 

 came vifibly fufpended by a thread from its tail. When it had de- 

 fended about two feet, the Colonel took it up by the thread, and 

 carried it to a diftant room ; but, in trying to fix it afrefh, in order 

 more accurately to obferve its progrefs, the thread broke. He then 

 put it on a frame about four feet from the ground ; in a few minutes 

 it was again fufpended, and, obferving by his watch, defcended at 

 the rate of three inches and an half in a minute. The motion was 

 not perfectly fmooth and regular, but at times flight jerks were ob- 

 ferved. When the Aug was near the ground, an attempt was made, 

 by taking hold of the thread near to the body, to fix it afrefh, but 

 the thread again broke, as it did likewife on being tried three other 

 times with the fame view, each time the Aug having nearly reached 

 the floor. At laft he fixed the end to a flick, by which he was en- 

 abled, by turning the flick round, to wind up the thread fafter than 

 it was produced. The thread however foon broke, and after thefe 

 trials, although the Aug made feveral attempts to fpin, it as often 

 fell to the ground ; on which it was put into wet mofs, and the next 

 day feemed fo far to have recovered the property of fpinning, as 

 -again to go through the former experiments. 



By the above repeated efiays, the Colonel, by means of glafTes 

 was enabled to make the foiled: obfervations, and found for cer- 

 tain that the fecretion, of which the thread was formed, was whoJIv 

 from the under parts, and not from the back or fides, both of which 

 appeared nearly dry ; nor did it proceed from any orifice in the tail 

 for in fome experiments it was fufpended by the tip of the tail at 

 other times from full an eighth of an inch on one fide of it. This 



5 Umax 



