C^ILv INTRODUCTORY OBSERVATIONS, 



the body, and be as healthy, lively, and vigorous^ 

 as before ; and we continually witnefs this in the 

 amputation of limbs. Nay, fo far from mutilations 

 being fatal, feveral of the lofl parts will be repair- 

 ed, as the branches of a tree are renewed. 



The mofl dreadful wounds, that imagination 

 can figure, hardly feem to accelerate death. M. 

 Riboud fluck different beetles through with pins ; 

 he cut and lacerated others in the fevereft man- 

 ner ; yet all lived nearly, if not quite, as long as 

 thofe that were entire. One, with a pin through 

 the body as thick as its thigh, furvived fourteen 

 days. I have feen a caterpillar dill alive, though 

 ihrunk to one third of its original fize ; and the 

 body of a butterfly manifefl animation, when the 

 wings were dry and Ihrivelled up. I have {eQn 

 a butterfly hve a month after being ftuck 

 through with a pin, and after I conceived its life 

 had been deftroyed by the fumes of fulphur ; 

 for fuch cruel experiments were not purpofely 

 made. Leeuwenhoeck, I think, had a mite 

 which lived eleven weeks fl:uck on a point before 

 his microfcope. Vaillant, intending to preferve 

 a locufl: of the Cape of Good Hope, took out 

 the inteflines, and filled the abdomen with cot- 

 ton, and then fixed it down by a pin through the 

 thorax j yet, after five months, the animal ftill 

 •moved its feet and antennas. 



In 



