VOL. III.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 285 



the tincture of its original, which will hold in grain ? In order to breed insects 

 out of herbs, dry them, for so they yield the best tincture ; otherwise stamp 

 them and let them dry till they will suffer no more juice to run from them ; 

 this in the sun or in a proportionable heat ; or if dried, infuse them with water 

 in a heat for 24 hours ; then evaporate the water tijl the infusion be as thick as a 

 syrup, without straining them from their fceccs ; take this mass and put it into 

 an earthen or wooden vessel covered with straw, or something of that nature, 

 that it lie not too close, and so proportion the quantity to the vessel, that the 

 air may come about and into the mass, yet not too much. Then set this vessel 

 in a ditch or pit made in the earth in a shady place, and put about it some wet 

 leaves, or some such putrifying matters, and over it a board, and on that some 

 straw or the like ; and it will produce first a shelly husky worm, and then a 

 fly of the tincture of the concrete, but durable and somewhat higher. As for 

 berries, stamp and boil them, evaporating them to the consistence of a rob, 

 and then use them as the former. As for woods, infuse them in water, being 

 first pulverized, and boil out their tincture ; then evaporate the water to such a 

 thickness as the other, and treat them in the same way. The flies will play 

 about the sides of the vessel and the surface of the matter ; which taken, are 

 killed in a warm pan or stove, and so dried and kept. 



[The whole tenor of this inaccurate and ill- written paper betrays great igno- 

 rance respecting the generation of insects. The coccus insect is not engendered 

 hy the juice of the cactus plant, but is merely nourished by it.^ 



Queries concerning Vegetation. N" 40, p. 797- 



What vegetables are there which having the wrong end of them set downward 

 into the ground, will yet grow ; as it is said elders, willows and briars will ? 

 Whether the branch of - plant, as of a vine or bramble, being laid into the 

 ground, whilst yet growing on the tree, and there taking root, being cut off 

 from the tree whilst so growing, will shoot out forward and backward ? In 

 tapping, cutting, or boring of any tree, whether the juice that vents at it comes 

 from above or below? What part of the juice ascends or descends by the 

 bark ? Whether what so ascends, does so by the outward or inward part of it ? 

 Whether, if a zone of about two or three inches be cut off about the bottom 

 of a branch, that branch will die or cast its leaves, or bleed out a juice from 

 the upper or lower part of the bark, so cut, or be apt to shoot out leaves or 

 branches or knobs either above or below that baring ? Of what use is the pith } 

 Whether the juice ascend or descend by it.? And what effects will follow 

 if the trunk be bored to the pith, and a peg driven hard into the hole of the 

 pith both above and below ? This to be tried in the most pithy plants. Whe- 

 ther the points or ends of the roots being cut off, the roots will bleed as copi- 



