VOL. XXIII.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 77 



oblongs and exact squares, which were joined to^^ether, as in fig. 19, which I 

 drew as exactly as I could from one of them. There are oft.'n 20 or more of 

 these figures in one branch, which generally adheres at one end to the stalks of 

 the plant, and I think.it remarkable thnt these rectangular pamllelograms are all 

 of the same size, the longest side not exceeding one-third of a hair's breadth, 

 and that the length is just double the breadth, the squares being visibly made up 

 of two parallelograms joined longwise. They seem very thin, and the texture of 

 every one is nearly the same. 



In some water which I took out of a pit I found a small water newt, not an 

 inch long, which I suppose was of this year's hatch, and the legs being so small 

 as not readily to be discerned at first view, and the body very clear, I took it at 

 first sight for a fish. This I kept by me, instead of tadpoles, to show the cir- 

 culation of the blood in its tail. But that was not the only entertainment it 

 gave me, for I found the course of the blood in every part of its body, and 

 particularly in every toe of the feet, it was a curious sight to observe the stream 

 come to the extremity of the toe in one channel, and return by another. In 

 this newt, just below the setting on of the head on each side, are three little 

 rugged fleshy branches, which it spreads like fins, and which help to poise its 

 body ; observing these with the microscope, I found each of them divided, 

 something like a leaf of polypody, into a great many pointed branchings, in 

 each of which, as in toes, I can see the blood come to the extreme point on 

 one side, and return on the other; and 30 or 40 of these branchings will some- 

 times appear at one view, and the blood seen be distinctly circulating in all. For, 

 as Mr. Cowper rightly observes, the globules of the blood of these animals are 

 very large, so that I can see the circulation in them very well, even with the 

 smallest magnifiers, which take in a large area. And, from what has been said 

 of this course of blood, I am persuaded, that these organs in the newt are not 

 only designed to be serviceable in their swimming, but (though they have lungs 

 Wke a frog) may be also analogous to the gills in fishes. 



In my examination of the waters of our ditches (in which I daily find new 

 varieties of animalcula) I met with great numbers of those round bodies, men- 

 tioned by Mr. Leuwenhoeck in the Transactions, N° 261 ; while I was observ- 

 ing them, I saw with surprise, that each of these spherical bodies, which are 

 smaller than a mustard seed, have a constant progressive motion, and at the 

 same time a slow revolution about their own axis, and contain within them 

 other small globules, some more, some less ; but I never found above 10 in any 

 one; and these I have seen move and change their position within the others, 

 which Mr. L. says he never observed. While I had one of these bodies on a 

 glass plate before my microscope, I saw (as Mr. L. describes it) one of the 



