366 NATURAL HISTORY. 



be, for that the juice of their bodies is almost all one; 

 not blood, and flesh, and skin, and bone, as in perfect 

 creatures ; the integral parts have extreme variety, 

 but the similar parts little. It is true, that they have, 

 some of them, a diaphragm and an intestine ; and 

 they have all skins ; which in most of the insecta are 

 cast often. They are not generally, of long life ; yet 

 bees have been known to live seven years : and snakes 

 are thought, the rather for the casting of their spoil, 

 to live till they be old : and eels, which many times 

 breed of putrefaction, will live and grow very long : 

 and those that interchange from worms to flies in the 

 summer, and from flies to worms in the winter, have 

 been kept in boxes four years at the least. Yet 

 there are certain flies that are called ephemera that 

 live but a day. The cause is the exility of the spirit, 

 or perhaps the absence of the sun ; for that if they 

 were brought in, or kept close, they might live longer. 

 Many of the insecta, as butterflies and other flies, re 

 vive easily when they seem dead, being brought to 

 the sun or fire. The cause whereof is the diffusion of 

 the vital spirit, and the easy dilating of it by a little 

 heat. They stir a good while after their heads are 

 off, or that they be cut in pieces ; which is caused 

 also, for that their vital spirits are more diffused 

 throughout all their parts, and less confined to organs 

 than in perfect creatures. 



698. The insecta have voluntary motion, and 

 therefore imagination ; and whereas some of the 

 ancients have said, that their motion is indeterminate, 

 and their imagination indefinite, it is negligently ob- 



