268 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO I698. 



by the sides of ponds in great quantities ; they are without shells, like those in 

 a hen's belly ; our dames scruple not to use them as hens' eggs in puddings.- — 

 Grashoppers, in dry years, are a plague to the husbandman ; so that on some 

 islands they have put multitudes of turkeys to destroy them ; they are prodigious 

 in quantity, of a grey colour, and about 3 inches long ; in July become flying 

 animals, and have a kind of regimental discipline, and as it were, some com- 

 manders, which show greater and more splendid wings than the commoners, 

 and rise first when they are pursued by the fowls, or by the foot of the tra- 

 veller, which I have often seriously remarked. — The hum-bird I have shot with 

 sand, and had one some weeks in my keeping. I put a straw for a perch into 

 a Venice glass tumbler, tied over the mouth with a paper, in which I cut holes 

 for the bird's bill, which is about as long and as small as a taylor's needle, and 

 laying the glass on one side, set a dram of honey by it, which it soon scented, 

 and with its long tongue put forth beyond its bill, fed daily ; it muted the honey 

 pure ; it flew away at last. — We have a frog as large as a penny loaf; its cry is 

 exactly like a bull. — I have examined the clam ; he has a plain pipe or proboscis, 

 from whence he ejects water if compressed. 



Concerning the Eyes of Beetles, &c. By Mr. Anthony Van Leutoenhoech. 



N° 240, p. 169. 



I have formerly spoke of the multiplicity of eyes, wherewith the smaller sort 

 of insects are endued, as flies are : which eyes I have several times shown to 

 different persons, to their great satisfaction ; and that in such a manner, that 

 they could clearly discern the apperarance of some hundreds of eyes at once. 

 Among the rest, I have last summer shown to several English gentlemen 

 the multiplicity of eyes that are to be seen in the tunica cornea of a beetle, 

 called the eye.* This sight was very strange to the English gentlemen, be- 

 cause if one reproaches a man there with blindness, or dimness of sight, they 

 use to say in English, you are as blind as a beetle. I have cut that part of a 

 beetle which is reckoned to be his eye, from the head, and after I had made it 

 clean, fixed it before the magnifying glass, and observed, that it could not 

 make up half the bulk of a globe, it being broader than it was long. I have 

 however counted, to the best of my power the eyes that were in one row, in 

 the greatest semicircle, and found that there were at least 60. Now let us sup- 

 pose, that in the small semicircle of the tunica cornea there are but 40 eyes in 

 one row, and then add these 6o to the 40, and it makes 100, the half whereof 

 is 50, which I imagine, if we take the tunica cornea for half a globe, they stand 



* A similar structure takes place in the cornea of by far the major part of insecti. 



