47S PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. QANNOI7OO. 



part of their body, and when they would sink, they made a strong and violent 

 motion, by means of a transparent instrument fixed on the end of the tail. 



The two sorts of gnats proceeding from these animals had stings ; they placed 

 themselves on the glass, and sat down also sometimes on the water, spreading 

 out their long legs over it. I saw also many large round particles, of the size of 

 a grain of snnd drive and move in the water; and when I brought these parti- 

 cles before the inagnifying-glass, they not only appeared round, but had the out- 

 ward skin set over with many protuberant parts, which seemed to be triangular, 

 and pointed towards the end ;* so that on the great circle of the roundness stood 

 such particles, all orderly and equally from each other, that on a small body 

 stood about 2000 of them, which never lay still, and their motion proceeded 

 from their turning round; and the smaller these particles were, the greener was 

 their colour ; and on the contrary, in the greatest, that were as large as a grain 

 of sand, no green colour was to be discerned on the outside. Each of these 

 particles included 5, 6, 7, nay, some 12 small round globules, of the same shape 

 with the body in which they were included. 



Among the rest I observed, that the outward part of one of the greatest 

 particles began to open, and that one of the round particles within it, 

 which was of a delicate green colour, slipped out, and began to move in the 

 water as that part had done, out of which it proceeded. After this, the 

 first round particle remaining motionless, and soon after the 2fl and 3d particles 

 slipped also out, one after the other, and so by degrees till they all came 

 out. After some days, the first round particle united again with the water, for I 

 could perceive no signs of it. And in all the motions I saw in the first round 

 particle, I could not observe that the included particles changed their place, nor 

 touched each other, but remained equally distant. 



Now as there was a great many of the said round particles in one glass, 

 wherein were also a great many living creatures, I observed that in 3 days time 

 they were all gone, so that I could not discern any of the said particles in the 

 glass. I had a glass tube of about 8 inches long, fig. 1, pi. 12, and of the 

 thickness of a goose quill, wherein I had put some drops of the water, as en. 

 I left one end at a open, and the other end is stopped up with a piece of cork, 

 so that between d and b was nothing but air, that the water might not run out 

 of the tube when it was handled ; which being shut up in the tube, it cannot 

 remain of the same magnitude or expansion, but changes every moment ; for 



* The animalcule here described is the tolvox globator. Linn. It is occasionally seen in vast 

 quantities in stagnant waters, and varies in colour, being sometimes found of a green tinge, and 

 sometimes yellow. 



