vOL. XXI V^.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 143 



get wings; so that there is no other change in them, than increasing in bulk, 

 and the sprouting out of wings. 



Now if this be true in these animalcula, though they are fifty times smaller 

 than the cochineal flies, we may easily believe the same of these also, especially 

 since the hinder parts of all of them are much alike; in confirmation of which 

 we may add, that eels, prawns, or shrimps, have also no males among them. 

 The old Spaniard said, that when the cochineal flies are dry, they rub them 

 between their hands, and so the wings, &c. are separated from the remaining 

 trunk; but if he had been more exact in his observations, he might have found 

 that not only the wings were thus separated from the hinder part of the body, 

 but also the upper part, with which go also the legs, the wings, and the head. 

 It is easily perceived that the lower part is divided fi-om the upper by nothing 

 but a kind of a short string, no thicker than a hog's bristle; so that one part 

 may be easily separated from the other, especially when the animalcula are 

 dried. 



The old Spaniard further affirms, that the cochineal is not so good till the 

 animalcula have got wings; from whence we might be apt to conclude, that the 

 cochineal animalcula become flying insects altogether, like silk worms, which 

 from reptiles are all changed, and that in a very short time, into butterflies. 

 But the case is quite otherwise with these cochineal flies, for they do not lay 

 their eggs all together, or in one day, but I rather suppose, that one of these 

 animalcula at once brings forth 20 eggs or young ones; and so they require 

 above 1 days before they can be delivered of all their eggs, for after I had 

 taken 200 eggs out of some of the cochineal flies, I saw exceedingly small ones 

 still remaining in the ovarium or egg-nest. 



In my observations upon the lime-trees, I saw not only several animalcula 

 that had wings, but others much smaller, and that in a gradual descent, so far 

 that many of them were hatched that very day; and these observations I did 

 not make at one certain season of the year only, but found that they continued 

 to hatch as long as the day were moderately warm. So I suppose it is also with 

 that animalculum whose trunk or lower parts compose what we call cochineal, 

 at least it was my opinion, after I had sufficiently observed several grains of 

 cochineal given me by three different persons; for when I compared some of the 

 largest grains of cochineal with the smallest,. I found that 1 5 of the small ones 

 were scarcely equal to one of the larger; and when I viewed the powder or dust 

 of the cochineal, which I took out of the bottom of a box, I met with some 

 trunks of those flies so very small, that I judged 100 of them not equal to one 

 large grain. i 



Plate 5, fig. 6, AB represent a grain of cochineal, cdefg, fig. 7, is another 



