322 Transactions of tJie [Sess. 



ing that man is plotting and contriving some mischief against it, 

 and that makes it oftentimes skulk into some meaner and lower 

 place, and run behind a man's back, though it go very much against 

 the hair ; which ill conditions of it having made it better known 

 than trusted, would exempt me from making any further descrip- 

 tion of it, did not my faithful Mercury, my microscope, bring me 

 other information of it. For this has discovered to me, by means 

 of a very bright light cast on it, that it is a creature of a very odd 

 shape : it has a head shaped like that exprest in 35 Scheme marked 

 with A [referring to the accompanying plate], which seems almost 

 conical, but is a little flattened on the upper and under sides, at 

 the biggest part of which, on either side behind the head (as it 

 were, being the place where other creatures' ears stand), are placed 

 its two black shining goggle-eyes, h b, looking backwards, and 

 fenced round with several small cilia or hairs that incompass it, so 

 that it seems this creature has no very good foresight. It does not 

 seem to have any eyelids, and therefore perhaps its eyes were so 

 placed that it might the better cleanse tliem with its fore-legs — and 

 perhaps this may be the reason why they so much avoid and run 

 from the light behind them ; for being made to live in the shady 

 and dark recesses of the hair, and thence probably their eye having 

 a great aperture, the open and clear light, especially that of the 

 sun, must needs very much offend them. To secure tliese eyes 

 from receiving any injury from the hairs through which it passes, 

 it has two horns that grow before it, in the place where one would 

 have thought the eyes should be." Our immortal national bard 

 must surely have read " Hooke " before giving the finishing touches 

 to his well-known poem. 



Proceeding to an allied group, our philosopher observes : " The 

 least of reptiles I have hitherto met with is a mite, — a creature 

 whereof there are some so very small that the sharpest sight, 

 unassisted with glasses, is not able to discern them, though, being 

 white of themselves, they move on a black and smooth surface ; 

 and the eggs out of which these creatures seem to be hatched 

 are yet smaller, those being usually not above a four- or five- 

 hundredth part of a well-grown mite, and those well-grown mites 

 not much above one-hundredth of an inch in thickness ; so that, 

 according to this reckoning, there may be no less than a million 

 of well-grown mites contained in a cubic inch, and five hundred 

 times as many eggs." 



To the microscopic sages of the present day, many of Hooke's 

 observations may look like the vagaries of a weakling ; but the 

 seeds of truth sown by him in weakness are now grown into 

 trees of knowledge whose fruit satisfies our intellect, enhances our 

 happiness, and increases our comforts. Let us not despise the 

 day of small things. 



