( ^67 ) 



Lovife in its motions, and caufe it to ufe the lling which it carries 

 in its tail, whereas, in dry weather, the clothes hanging ioofe on 

 the body, tlie Louie has room to infert its piercer and luck its 

 food, which it cannot do without bending its body and railing its 

 hind pai'ts. 



The Louie is fo prohfic an animal, that it is a common vulgar 

 faying, that it will be a grandfather in the fpace of twenty-four 

 hours. This I could never believe to be the fad;, but rather that it 

 would require nearly a month for the offspring of a Louie to be ca- 

 pable of producing young of its kind ; and, in order to make proof 

 of it by experiment, I at fn-ft propofed to hire fome poor child to 

 wear a clean Hocking for a week, with two or three female lice ia 

 it, and well tied or fecured at the garter, in order to fee how many 

 young ones would be produced in that ipace of time ; but 1 after- 

 wards confidered, that I could make the experiment with much 

 more certainty in my own peribn, at the expence only of enduring, 

 in one leg, w^hat moll poor people are obliged to fufFer in their 

 whole bodies during all their lives. 



Hereupon I put on one leg, inllead of the white ujidcr ftocking 

 I nl\;ally wear, a fine black ftocking, chufmg that colour, becaufe 

 I confidered that the eggs and the young lice thence proceeding, 

 would be more ealily dirtinguifhed upon it. Into this ftocking I 

 put two large female lice, and cutting another black ftocking into 

 long Hips, I bound it over the firft above the knee, to prevent their 

 efcaping. After wearing this ftocking fix days, I took it off, ar.d 

 found one of the Lice in the fame place w^here I had put it, and 

 that it had laid fifty eggs, and in another part of the ftocking the 

 other had laid about forty eggs, but the parent I could not find. I 

 opened the other which had laid the fifty eggs, and found in its 

 body at leaft fifty more, and who knows how many eggs it had laid 

 before I put it into the ftocking, and how many more eggs it might 

 then have in its body which my fight could not reach ? 



Having worn the ftocking ten, days longer,' I found in it at leaft 



