5Q4 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO I7OI. 



Now it is possible that the stinging of spiders in hotter countries may be 

 more pernicious than in our cUmate ; it is also possible, that this spider might 

 have spent his poison lately, by wounding another spider, or some other animal. 

 When I had kept this frog four days in the glass tube, and found that it was 

 not altered, I threw it into the water, and observed that it endeavoured to swim 

 towards land, as all frogs do in deep waters, for fear of being devoured by the 

 fish. 



I observed the blood of a spider, and found that every particle of blood 

 consists of several other smaller parts, each of which I imagined was composed 

 of six others, analogous to the blood of the human body ; and I also observed 

 several other little particles, some less than others ; but these last particles were 

 not visible till the fine serum of the blood was quite exhaled. Moreover, in 

 viewing the blood that issued from the feet that were cut off, I observed that 

 the serum would exhale, and the salt particles would cleave together like so 

 many fine twigs or branches, like the night-dews when congealed on glass- 

 windows ; but when I forbore looking, and laid the glass by, the air being 

 cool, the crystallized salts returned to their former shape ; and again, if I 

 brought my warm hand but half a minute near the glass, all the salt particles 

 were coagulated again ; but with breathing a little on them, they were quickly 

 reduced to a clear water. It was curious to see these salts, which seemed to 

 have their rise from a point, or exceedingly small particle of blood, stream and 

 branch themselves, as it were, into trees. 



Afterwards I took up another spider, and put it into a glass tube, in order to 

 discover the circulation of the blood ; which I saw very plain, both in the veins 

 and arteries; and its legs being very transparent, like those spiders found in 

 trees or shrubs, I saw several limes a sudden and brisker motion of the blood, 

 which I suppose was occasioned by every systole and diastole of the heart. I 

 took another which I found on a thistle, which was eight times less than the 

 large garden spider, and observed the circulation of his blood, which I could 

 easily perceive both in the veins and arteries. 



In the middle, or about the latter end of October, I took several of the 

 largest spiders I could find, and shut them up severally in glass tubes, that they 

 might lay their eggs, and to see what I could discover in these. I was amazed 

 to find in their excrements whole wings and heads and legs of small flies, which 

 are so large, that I could not conceive how they passed through their bodies. 

 On the 30th of October, I observed that two of my spiders had laid eggs, and 

 had covered them with so vast a quantity of their web, that I was astonished 

 how they could do it in a few hours. I took the web, with the eggs inclosed, 

 and opened several of them, which I found to be of a yellowish colour. 



