664 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO 1712. 



thought the smallest of animals, and how admirable the structure of such a 

 wonderful animalculum is. 



After some very cold and frosty weather, I got some mites that were taken 

 from a bladder broken in pieces, and viewed them with a glass ; and saw that 

 some of them were dead, and others still living, but very slow in moving. I 

 put a little piece of dry bladder in a clean glass tube, with four mites ; and 

 viewing them in the great frost, I observed that one of the mites had composed 

 all its legs so exactly under its body, that as one viewed it on the upper part of 

 the body, none of them could be seen ; from whence I concluded that that 

 mite was dead. Having again viewed the same mite a day or two after the 

 second hard frost, I observed, that it lay in the same place, and in the same 

 manner as it did two months before. The other mites were also very much 

 dried and shrunk up, and their bodies bent double, and were dead. However, 

 fancying that the aforesaid mite was still living, I viewed her again, and saw her 

 begin to move one of her legs; on which I warmed the glass tube a little, and 

 then saw the little animal not only stretch out all her legs, but begin to creep 

 very gently along. It seemed to me very wonderful, that so small an animal- 

 culum should live above two months sticking on the sides of the glass in so 

 sharp a frost; nor was its moisture evaporated out of its body; but the dead 

 mites were so shrunk up, that they were not half so large as when they were 

 alive. 



In the month of August I stood by a fishmonger's shop, while they were 

 laying dry ling in the water, to soften it; and I observed several mites running 

 about on the fish. I took five of these and put them into a glass tube, with a 

 little bit of the dried ling, to observe what sort of creatures would be produced 

 from them ; and after having shut them up for some days, I discovered that they 

 had changed their skins, and that they had made a great many holes in the 

 cork which stopped one end of the tube, and had insinuated themselves so far 

 into it, that one could see none of their bodies. These animalcula are well 

 known to the furriers, being very destructive to their furs. The cast skin of 

 one of these animalcula as above-mentioned, is represented by fig. 6. 



It would seem it was not without an important design that these animalcula, 

 having changed their skins, had dug so deep into the cork that I could not see 

 them ; for on the 8th of September I discovered two winged insects like little 

 beetles, having the fore and hinder part of their bodies black, and the middle 

 brown, with some speckles; also having two shields upon their bodies, which 

 covered their wings; and the skins, which they had shed, after they came out 

 of the cork, lay about the glass. To satisfy myself that the said animalcula 

 were changed from worms into flying insects, I opened two of the holes they 



