Ill. conrrNED IN STAGNANT AIR. 7¢ 
coming yellow till after a confiderable interval, 
The feeds were peafe, maize, red wheat, and rye. I 
planted two ftalks of rye under the neck of the vef- 
fel, where there was a fufficient fpace for their es 
jevation: the neck being very long, they exhibit- 
ed unequivocal marks of incipient fructification. 
by the ear fhooting out of the calyx; and it 
would have made the greateft progrefs but for 
‘the approach of winter. 
To complete what has been faid of feeds con- 
fined in veffels, it may be remarked, that I have 
in this way obferved more than twenty fpecies at 
different timés without finding one that did not 
germinate. A precaution effential to their produc- 
tion muft be attended to: whenever they {pring 
in’ water, which takes place in clofe as well as in 
open veffels, the infufed feeds muft be partially 
above the water, otherwife they perith: which 
was adverted to before me by the celebrated na- 
turalift M. Duhamel. 
If vegetable feeds germinate without exception 
in confined air, what are we to think of animal fe- 
mina, or the eggs of infects, which, according to 
‘Boerhaave, and the general opinion of philofo- 
phers, fhould remain fterile, even when the ope- 
ration of citcumftances the moft favourable to 
their production concurs? Here I thought it 
better to confult nature than to truft to the fen- 
timents of others. 1 therefore made experiments 
on many eggs: on thofe of beetles, flies, flefh 
flies, 
