666 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO 1712. 



I took the tail of the pole-cat out of the glass, and examining it, I found a 

 living animalculum in it as small as an egg, which was very white to the naked 

 eye. I shut it up in a little glass, and put a small bit of the flesh of a whale 

 into it; and I perceived that, after a few hours, it had assumed a rosy colour. 

 I also found three eggs, in one of which the animalculum was so large, that by 

 the help of a microscope, I could discover part of the body through the shell 

 of the egg: and two days after, being the 8th of June, I could perceive through 

 a microscope, on the wreathed or notched parts, red streaks, on which were 

 long hairs; and in the evening the animalculum was got out of the egg-shell, 

 and the next morning it had assumed a rosy colour. 



June 13, I saw some few eggs on the glass, on which I took two out, and 

 put them into a glass tube of the length and breadth of a finger, leaving six or 

 eight others in the aforesaid glass; and I took the said blackish animalcula out 

 of the glass, and carried the glass tube, in which the two eggs were, about with 

 me in my pocket, that I might see how much sooner these would be hatched 

 than those which I left on my desk in a large glass tube; and I discovered, 

 June 15, young ones hatched from the eggs which I carried about me, as on 

 the 20th, were those in the tube that lay on my desk. 



July 5, I observed that in the two several glasses that contained the animal- 

 cula, that some of them had left the bit of whale's flesh, and kept themselves 

 very still on the cork ; so that I fancied they were going to be changed into 

 flying insects ; but I was mistaken ; for they only lay on the skins they had shed, 

 and then the flying insects daily laid their eggs, out of which also came young 

 ones; but most of the eggs that had been laid were eaten up; to prevent which, 

 some of those flying creatures were so cunning, as to thrust their eggs between 

 the cork and the glass, by which some of the eggs became flattish, and yet 

 young ones came out of them. 



Soon after July 5, I perceived that some of the running or creeping animal- 

 cula had gnawed holes in the cork, into which they had dug so deep, that one 

 could not see their bodies. The beginning of August, I viewed them again, 

 but could not perceive any flying creatures, as I expected, to be changed from 

 the creeping ones ; wherefore I cut off^ a little of the cork in two several places 

 where those creeping creatures had been digging, and then I discovered one 

 animalculum, which had changed its skin for the last time, and lay still on the 

 hinder part of its body, and was lying in the aurelia, which was white. On the 

 notches of its body there were red streaks: and when I touched it with a nee- 

 dle, it stirred its body very much. August 10, I observed that one of the 

 aurelias was stripped of its little skin, which was exceedingly thin, and it was 

 an agreeable sight as viewed through the microscope. In all my observations I 



