VOL. XXVII.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 66l 



Afterwards I took some mites out of some wheat flour, which had been about 

 14 days in my house, and viewed them through a microscope; but I could not 

 perceive, though I viewed them very nicely, those jointed parts which are as 

 it were covered with hairs, and are on the body and feet of the mites, and 

 which are so small, that they seem themselves to be nothing but hairs. From 

 which observation I considered, that as the flies, which we judge to be of one 

 sort, are yet of very diff^erent kinds; for some of them lodge their eggs in 

 flesh, others in cheese, others again in dung; and accordingly the worms 

 hatched from these eggs, receive their food and growth from the several sub- 

 stances in which they lie: so likewise among the mites, some live upon flesh, 

 and others again on meal or bread. 



For further satisfaction, I went to a grocer's shop, and out of a little barrel 

 took some figs that were of the growth of the year 1707, thinking to find a 

 great many mites among them; but I met with only 3 or 4 mites that were 

 living ; and those had longer hairy parts on the hinder part of their body, than 

 I had seen on any before ; and those hairy parts were also covered with as many 

 small hairs, as I have said before. 



In my search after mites, I discovered a kind of animalcula smaller than the 

 abovementioned, and of a quite different figure from the other. The hairs on 

 the body and feet were very short; the body, and particularly the head, were of 

 quite another make; for these had on the side of the head two short instru- 

 ments, with which they made a very quick motion, and with which probably 

 they convey their food to their mouth, because their head was shorter than that 

 of a mite. 



Fig. 4, pi. 17, represents such a hair of a mite; with the hairy particles 

 branching out of the sides, as viewed through the microscope ; which hairy 

 particles have joints along their length also. Fig. 5, represents the half of one 

 of those hairy particles, found in great numbers on the bodies of bees, seen 

 through the microscope. 



I observed that one of these mites, after she was stuck upon the point of a 

 pin, laid two eggs; one of which appeared to the eye like a large grey pea, and 

 the other I judged to be like a sparrow's egg. Another mite had laid 4 eggsj 

 and another, which I had newly placed before a microscope, laid two. The 

 mite that had laid 4 eggs, was only fastened by the two hinder legs of the left 

 side of her body ; so that she could move the fore-part, and even displace it : 

 and I observed, that after the said mite had stuck upon the point of a sharp 

 pin for the space of 10 days, she had eaten two of her eggs. 



I have opened the bodies of several of these mites, and took two eggs out 

 of one of them ; and once I took three eggs out of the body of another. 



