662 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [anNO 1712. 



which were come to their full growth; but in the most of them I could dis- 

 cover no eggs: some of them I imagined to be males. And though the liquid 

 matter of the eggs, which I took out of their bodies, was exhaled in a very short 

 time; yet those eggs, which the mites had laid, preserved their perfect size and 

 roundness. The reason of which was, as I imagined, that the shells of those 

 eggs which I had taken out of their body, had not yet acquired their full hard- 

 ness, and consequently the liquor was more easily exhaled from them. 



The mite that had laid 2 eggs, I put into a box, with a microscope before 

 which it was placed; and on the 17th of October 17O8, I put it into my pocket, 

 to see how long time was required for the hatching the young mites from the 

 eggs. I viewed these eggs more than once every day ; and after 3 or 4 days 

 the mite was dead. And after I had carried them 9 days in my pocket, I ob- 

 served that the eggs, which were at first transparent, became dark at one end, 

 and that that darkness increased from time to time; so that on the 30th of 

 October, I could discern but a very small part of the egg to be clear. And on 

 the 1st of November, I observed but one egg; and that which remained of it 

 was so little, and it lay so confused, that I could discover nothing for certain. 

 In the second egg I not only observed the same appearances as in the other, 

 but I saw also a small animalculum lying in the egg, of which I could perceive 

 the head and some of the hairy parts of the body. And as the animalculum, 

 now complete, did not entirely fill the shell of the egg, some part of the shell 

 was now transparent ; by which means I could more plainly discover the ani- 

 malculum and its hairs in the egg. About an hour after my first discovery, I 

 observed the animalculum had forced out about one-third part of its body, and 

 was making a great motion with four of its feet. But forasmuch as the ani- 

 malculum could not fasten its legs, which it had put out of the shell, on any 

 place, it made a great stirring with them the whole day, without being able to 

 bring its body farther out of the shell; and the next day it was dead. 



I observed that a mite, which had been stuck through its back with a point 

 of a pin, had on the smallest part of one of its legs an egg adhering to it; and 

 though he moved his foot very much, yet the egg stuck fast to it all that day 

 that I observed it. From whence I concluded, that the eggs of mites are of 

 the same nature with those of caterpillars, and other creeping animals, whose 

 eggs, wherever they fall, stick fast by reason of a slimy or glutinous matter 

 with which they are surrounded. But the next day I observed that the mite 

 had worked the egg oflfits leg, and by the help of its claws held it in one foot: 

 and though it made a great stir with its legs, and particularly with that which 

 held the egg, yet it did not let it go, but took it from one foot into 

 the other; which was a very pleasant sight; but the next day I could not 

 find the egg. 



