4 
INSECTS. 
ducted; for, supposing the flesh not to be abso- 
lutely fresh or recent when first put into the vessel, 
it is by no means improbable that some animal’s 
eggs might have been deposited upon it before the 
experiment was made; in which case they would 
undoubtedly hatch in the vessel, and thus lead to 
a fallacy. The flesh therefore must be perfectly 
fresh and well examined before it be put into the 
vessel. Still however an objection might be made 
on account of the legions of microscopic animal- 
cules which would probably appear, if the fluid 
parts of the flesh, even in the closed vessel, were 
accurately surveyed*. 
The ancients, exclusive of the former erroneous 
notion, entertained an idea that Insects were desti- 
tute of blood ; for which reason they called them 
animalia exsanguia or bloodless animals ; but 
this idea arose merely from their not having paid 
that minute attention to the study of Nature which 
distinguished the philosophers of the last and pre- 
sent century; and particularly to their not having 
had the advantage of the microscope. Insects are 
now well known to be so far from bloodless ani- 
mals that in many of them the circulation itself of 
the blood is most clearly and distinctly perceived. 
The blood of insects differs from that of the larger 
animals chiefly in colour, since in most insects it 
w ants redness, being generally of a clear or watery 
* We must also admit that some kinds of the cellular or 
hydatid taeniae might have taken up their abode in the flesh, and 
these, to a person inconversant in Natural History, might appear 
an argument in favour of equivocal generation. 
