328 Tmnxnctiom of the Society. 



Fuerstenberg,* who devotes some 170 closely printed folio pages 

 to the bibliography of this organism alone (fig. 41). 



We may now revert to the more general development of micro- 

 scopic knowledge. The earliest observation with the compound 

 Microscope that has come down to us is by Galileo himself, and is 

 preserved in a work by the Scot, John Wodderborn, dated 1610. 

 It shows that the great astronomer had even at that date an idea of 

 the compound character of the eyes of insects. " A few days back," 

 says Wodderborn, " I heard the author himself [Galileo] narrate to 

 that noble philosopher, the most excellent Signor Gremonius, 

 various things worthy to be known, and among others how he 

 perfectly distinguished with his telescope [perspicillum] the organs 

 of motion and of sense in the smaller animals, but especially in a 

 certain insect which has each eye covered by a rather thick mem- 

 brane, that is nevertheless perforated with seven holes like the iron 

 visor of a warrior, thus affording a passage to the images of visible 

 things." t 



At this earliest period a usual object of microscopic research 

 was some minute insect, often a flea or a fly (hence the names 

 ' Vitrea pulicaria " and " Vitrea muscaria," as applied to Micro- 

 scopes), and not infrequently the mites of cheese or of lard or vinegar- 

 eels. In that useful treasury of the opinions of the day, the 

 copious collection of the letters of Peiresc, we read in a document 

 addressed to Girolamo Aleandro, dated from Paris, June 7th, 1622, 

 of a " Telescope or occMale of new invention, different from that of 

 Galileo, which shows a flea as large as one of those wingless locusts 

 called crickets, and almost of the same shape. It had two (larger) 

 limbs and the other legs smaller. The head and almost all the rest 

 of the body was covered and armed with crusts or scales like locusts 

 or small shrimps. The animalcules customarily generated in 

 cheese, called by us Mitte, Mittoni, or Artiggioni, and which are so 

 tiny that they appear almost like dust, become, when seen by that 

 instrument, as large as flies without wings. They are so distinctly 

 discernable that they may be recognized to have very long legs, a 

 pointed head, and every part of the body quite distinct, making us 

 admire in the highest degree the effects of divine providence, which 

 was far more incomprehensible to us when that aid to our eyes 

 was wanting." \ 



* M. H. F. Fuerstenberg, " Die Kratzmilben der Menschen und Thiere,'* 

 Leipzig, 1861. 



t John Wodderborn, Scotobritannus, " Quatuor problematum quae Martinus 

 Horky contra Nuntium Sidereum de quatuor planetis novis disputanda proposuit 

 confutatio," Padua, 1610, p. 7. 



X The vast Peiresc literature contains numerous references to the Microscope 

 and its wonders, but few definite observations. The one quoted is reproduced from 

 a manuscript in the Barberini Library by Professor Govi, in his "II Microscopic 

 composto inventato da Galileo," published in the " Atti della li. Accademia delle 

 scienze fis. e mat. in Napoli," ii. 2a Serie, No. 1, 1888. 



