SlflS PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [anNO 1700. 



I saw seven flies leaping about the glass, which also remained but two days 

 alive, and were of a quite different make from the other flies, for their bodies 

 were shorter than those of the other creatures. 



After this I saw small lice on the leaves of a hazel-nut tree, of which I took 

 some, and viewing them, I observed that they agreed in shape with the green 

 ones, with this difference, that they were less by half ; for after some of them 

 were changed into flying creatures, their bodies were not larger than a single 

 coarse sand, and covered with abundance of hair ; and at the ends of those 

 hairs, small clear drops of moisture; but when they had shed their last skin, 

 and were turned into flies, I could perceive no hair on their bodies. I opened 

 also several of these lice, and took the young ones out of their bellies. These 

 three beforementioned aureliae, after they had been shut up about 8 days in the 

 tube, I saw that from one of them a flying creature was produced, which was 

 of a grey colour, and the underpart of the wings and the body was yellowish ; 

 in other respects it was just like the creature we call a moth, only larger than 

 the white moth that eats cloth, when they are worms. 



The next day I had the luck to observe, that the little creature in the second 

 aurelia, began to stir, in order to get out of its fold or inclosure. The first 

 motion the creature made was, stretching out the hinder part of its body, which 

 at the same time lengthened the hinder part of the case in the fold or circular 

 part; and it remained so ; this was soon followed by a second and third, whereby 

 the circular parts of the case were much lengthened ; and in this action the 

 case, at the end where the head of the fly was, burst open, and a moth was 

 perceived flying about the glass. The wings of this new creature were but 

 half so long as the wings of that creature which came out the day before. This 

 moth raised his short wings straight up, then stretched them out several times, 

 and then spread them over his body; in doing which the wings came to their 

 length, and the manifold feathers, which lay so thick over one another upon 

 the wings, on the stretching them out were parted in several places, which 

 was not unpleasant to behold, yielding a sort of a marble, or party-coloured 

 glance. These three skins of the aureliae, were with their smallest end fastened 

 to the other in a little of the web of the worms, and though I endeavoured to 

 divide them with shifting their places, or shaking them together, yet it was all 

 in vain. This made me inquire into the reason of such a concatenation ; when 

 taking one of them out of the lube, I saw that at the end of all, and also a 

 little lower, it was armed with an odd sort of crooked hooks, which seemed to 

 be given to them on purpose that they might get the easier out of their in- 

 closure. 



For if the imprisoned creature stretches out its body, in order to come 



