86 ANIMALS AND VEGETABLES Il. 
which is their natural aliment, it is almoft certain 
that the acceleration of death is in proportion to 
their numbers (1). _ 
‘The experiments related in the preceding chapter 
induced me likewife to engage in this inquiry. Ifit 
was true that feveral animals of a given {pecies con- 
fined in the fame veflel died as foon as where there 
was only one, and if the phenomena was not acci- 
dental but conftant, it muft be regulated, as I 
faid before, in a manner proportioned to the 
imaller quantity of air confined along with the 
animals. But we may eafily fee, when the vef- 
fels are equal, that the {malleft quantity muft al- 
ways be where there are moft animals. As frogs 
had difturbed the order eftablifhed by this law, 
according to Veratti, and as I could not repeat 
the experiments of Piftorini, becaufe he has not 
fpecified the animals he employed, my experi- 
ments were on frogs alfo: fome in veflels with 
water, and fome in veflels without it, thus to ap- 
proach the method followed by thefe authors. In 
three veffels, which would each contain five 
pounds of water, ‘I hermetically fealed up frogs, 
that is, two in one, four in another, and eight in 
a third. In this laft, the eight frogs perifhed in 
twenty-fix hours; in the fecond, the four frogs 
died in one day; and in the other, the two 
ifhe@ ift two days. 
A fimilar experiment wag at the fame time 
made with three veffels more, as large as the 
firft, 
(t) Mifcell. Taur. Tom. 2. 
