VOL. XXVII.] , PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 665 



had made in the cork, and observed in one of them an animalculum lying, which 

 indeed had changed its skin, yet was not become black, but was still white, 

 and was about the size of our common small flies. September 11, two more 

 of the animalcula came out of the cork, and the female, which at first was all 

 white, and was still like an aurelia, and stirred very much, became red, and 

 then turned to a darker red. September 17, the aurelia had shed its skin, 

 which was exceedingly thin, and then it ran about the glass; but it was not 

 arrived to that blackness which others had, which had run longer about the 

 glass. Fig. 7 represents one of those animalcula with its two little shields that 

 cover the wings when it does not fly, and then they are folded up within the shells. 



Now since we see that the worms, whose skin is represented at fig. 6, are 

 turned into flying insects, which lay their young or eggs in all parts of a house; 

 and since it is natural for all creatures to bestow their eggs where they can be 

 best preserved and hatched, it will not appear strange that these creatures are 

 mostly found on furs that are fat. 



About the end of May, I sought for some mites* upon a piece of some dried 

 flesh of a whale, which hung upon a little string fastened to a nail in my closet, 

 and I perceived that several of the said blackish animalcula fell off from the 

 piece of whale's flesh, and this happened four several days. I then put most of 

 the flying creatures into a glass tube, which I stopped in such a manner as not 

 to exclude the air: and put into the said tube a little bit of whale's flesh, on 

 which I observed that they fed greedily, and that a great deal of their excre- 

 ments lay upon the glass. May 31,1 saw three white eggs laying on the glass, 

 but having none of that viscous matter about them, with which the eggs of 

 most of the animalcula are endowed, these eggs did not stick to the glass, but 

 fell among the excrements; so that I could not distinguish them. 



In the first glass tube, in which were those animalcula which I had shut up 

 the whole winter, and were turned into flying creatures, I observed two young 

 animalcula running about, whose skins are represented by fig. 6 ; but how many 

 of them there were I could not discover, because about a month before I had 

 put into the tube the tail of a pole cat, that they might subsist on the fur, 

 which I was told they used to feed upon ; and afterwards I put in a little bit of 

 the flesh of a whale into the same tube. These young animalcula were but little 

 larger than the eggs before-mentioned. Since that time I saw the said animal- 

 cula but once ; and the eggs which I saw, in a day or two after, I could discover 

 no more, nor any of- the small animalcula, from whence I concluded, that the 

 flying creatures had'eaten up their eggs and young ones. 



* Under the word mites M. L. erroneously comprehends the lai-vae of certain winged insects j 

 whereas mites (or those insects which belong to the Linnaean genus acarus) are apterous, in both sexes. 

 VOL. V. 4 Q 



