368 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO 166Q, 



among many other things, of its eleven rings or incisures, and of how 

 many small ones each of them is made up ; giving their shape, size, &c. 

 Then he goes on to the wrinkles of the body, the head, eyes, teeth (cutting 

 not by an up and down motion but a lateral one) and legs, with their different 

 shapes, joints, claws, together with their posture and motion for spinning. 



Of their internal parts, he observes the quality of the humour found in them, 

 viz. concreting by the warmth of one's hand, and leaving a crust : next the 

 mucous and rosy- coloured skin, supposed to be the new skin, found under the 

 exterior. Then he describes the various muscles and fibres, both parallel and 

 oblique, more or less, together with the insertion of the fibres in every ring, 

 and of every ring in the cavity of its neighbouring ring, for producing the pro- 

 gressive motion of the animal ; the manner of which is described very particu- 

 larly. 



He passes on to the vessels moistening all the parts, observing their branches 

 and anastomoses ; their termination in one common trunk, and the curious 

 net-work they make. These vessels prolonged, he makes to be the lungs, 

 whose structure for respiration he diligently describes, illustrating the same 

 with observations made of other insects, and with some trials, showing, both 

 that air issues out of their body, and that oily liquors will suffocate them, only 

 by stopping the orifice of their wind pipe. 



From the lungs he proceeds to the heart, which he says reaches from the 

 head to the tail, being of a strange figure, and rather many hearts than one ; 

 whose motion of systole and diastole he describes, taking also notice how the 

 vital humour passes from one little heart to another. 



The ventricle, [stomach] he observes, reaches also from one extreme of the 

 worm to the other ; describing its substance, shape, fibres, and vessels bedew- 

 ing it, together with its resemblance to the ventricle [stomach] of other insects : 

 where he particularly notes the great voracity of the silk- worm, affirming, that 

 it will eat as much in one day, as its whole empty body weighs. 



In the sides of the belly about the ventricle he finds a woof of vessels, con- 

 taining the silky juice ; describing their progress from the mouth downward 

 into the belly, and their strange flexures and meanders ; whose end he affirms 

 to have at length, after a long and patient search, found out. Of these vessels 

 he makes a large and curious description, as also of their different juices, as 

 the cause of the different sorts of webs and bags. 



He also gives an accurate account of the fine texture of the spinal marrow 

 and the cranium. 



He notices the gradual change of the silk-worm, after it is exhausted by 

 spinning ; how all the parts are altered^ and the whole disposed to assume the 



