134 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [^ANNO 1704. 



fig. 24, as magnified with a microscope. This insect very much resembles a 

 louse in shape and colour, but it runs more nimbly : it is common in every 

 house, in the warm months; but in the cold season of the year, it hides itself 

 in dry obscure places, and is seldom seen. 



Some time after their copulation, they lay their eggs in dry, dusty places, 

 where they meet with least disturbance ; for in such only I have found them. 

 These eggs are very minute, much smaller than the nits of lice ; though lice 

 are not much larger than this insect is. These eggs are white, and shaped like 

 nits, but more transparent ; and, like the eggs of all insects that I have ob- 

 served, are hatched by the warmth of the approaching spring, which to them is 

 the same as an incubation. At their first leaving the egg-shell, they are ex- 

 ceedingly small, so as scarcely to be discerned by the sharpest eye, without the 

 help of a convex glass. With a microscope I have seen them crawling about, 

 but could scarcely perceive any hairs, feet, &c. they rather looked like moving 

 eggs. At the first leaving their shells they are less than their eggs, though 

 the eggs are scarcely visible without a microscope. 



These young death-watches are perfectly like the mites in cheese ; I could 

 not perceive any difference between them, when much magnified with a mi- 

 croscope, but only that mites have more bristles about their breech. In this 

 shape they continue 6 or 8 weeks, feeding on divers things they can meet with. 

 Indeed they are a great annoyance to me, in devouring or defacing my speci- 

 mens of insects. And there are scarcely any sorts escape these voracJous, 

 though minute animals. From this mite slate, they grow gradually to their 

 more perfect one : when they become like the old ones, they are at first very 

 small, and then run about more swiftly than when mites, in which mite state 

 they creep but slowly. 



An Eclipse of the Moon, observed near the Royal Exchange, in London, on 

 Sunday Morning December 12, Anno' 1703. By Mr. J. Hodgson, F.R. S.* 

 N° 291, p. 1594. Translated from the Latin. 



Concerning this eclipse, Mr. Hodgson saw the moon more than 20 times, 

 from the beginning to the end of her emersion ; yet by reason of the interven- 

 ing clouds, and the short time he had to view her in, he could not pretend to 

 determine any thing with exactness. 



• Mr. James Hodgson was a respectable mathematician, and sometime master of the Royal 

 Mathematical School in Christ's Hospital, London. Besides a multitude of communications in the 

 Pbilos. Trans, from vol. xxiv, to vol, xlix. inclusive, he was also author of several mathematical pub- 

 lications: as, 1. Treatise on Navigation, in 4to. 1706) 2. System of the Mathematics, in 2 vols. 

 4to. 1723; 3. The Theory of Jupiter's Satellites, 4to. 17.50 j 4. The Doctrine of Fluxions, 4to. 

 1758; 5. The Valuation of Annuities upon Lives, in 4to.3 6. An Introduction to Chronology. 



