JlO - I'HILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO 1 70O. 



never spoken of them before, because I intend to bring these creatures into 

 the class of those that are found living in the seed of males. For, opening 

 these creatures anew, not those that were come to their full growth, but those 

 that were so small, as that 25 of them would make but one great one, as I had 

 taken out of the full grown ones the young, in which I not only perceived 

 the shape of their limbs, but could also behold very distinctly their eyes ; so 

 out of the little ones I took several small oval figures, which were very trans- 

 parent, and doubtless would have become living creatures; for when I dissected 

 such as were a little larger, and that gradually, I found that the oval figures 

 were also proportionably greater, so far that the little creatures were com- 

 pleatly grown, and in a state to be brought forth. 



Now we observe in those little creatures called lice, something that does 

 not occur, that I know of, in other creatures, viz. that these creatures bring forth 

 young without any copulation with males; afterwards they cast their skins, and 

 from creeping insects become flies, which, when one beholds them with the 

 naked eye, one would not imagine to proceed from such a change, for they are 

 twice as long, reckoning their wings, after they are turned to flies as before. 



I also caused several of the said green lice, that were in great numbers on 

 the leaves of currant-trees, to be brought to me, and those of them that lay 

 for dead, and were rounder and whiter than the others that were living and 

 moving, I cut out with the little pieces of leaves whereon they lay and stuck 

 fast; for if we should attempt to remove one of these little creatures with a 

 needle or a pin, we should probably hurt the others that are shut up in the 

 bellies of the dead ones. These pieces of leaves, on which the dead creatures 

 lay, I put into a large wide glass tube, covered at both ends with fine linen; 

 for I concluded that the death of those lice was occasioned by another crea- 

 ture, or an egg thrust into their bodies, where it receives its food and growth, 

 and then m^es its way out of their bodies again. I had shut up these dead 

 lice about 8 days, when I observed two little flies,* of quite another make, in 

 wings, colour, and shape, leaping about the glass. I shifted these flies into 

 another glass tube, where I had before put six green lice, which I had taken 

 from the leaf of a currant-tree, and those of the most full grown, and yet 

 they were not come to that perfection, as that I could observe those parts which 

 were to become wings. As soon as these flies came near the said lice, they 

 brought the hinder part of their body, which was pretty long, between all their 

 feet, and stretched their body so far out, that their tail making a kind of semi- 

 circle with the rest of the body, stood out beyond their head, and in this man- 



* These flies appear to have beeu some small species of hhncumon. 



