VOL. XLI.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 429 



enough when there is not too much of it ; and the same scent hangs about the 

 fingers a long while after touching it. In the exhausted receiver, where it was 

 kept sometimes for half an hour, it seemed perfectly unconcerned, walking 

 about in vacuo as briskly as in the open air ; but, on admission of the air, it 

 shrinked its legs together, and appeared in a surprise for near a minute. 



This beetle, after being kept half a year longer, was permitted to get away, 

 by the carelessness of a servant, who took down the glass to wipe it. 



See the figure of this insect, in fig. 6, pi. 9. 



The Discovery of a perfect Plant in Semine. By Mr. Henry Baker.* 



N° 457, p. 448. 



Since the ancient supposition of equivocal generation has been rejected, for 

 a more reasonable belief, that every thing proceeds from parents of its own 

 kind, numbers of curious people have busied themselves in search of experi- 

 ments, whereby to demonstrate the truth of the latter, and consequently the 

 falsity of the former opinion. For this purpose the animal and vegetable worlds 

 have been examined, and such analogy found between them, as proves con- 

 vincingly, that their generation and increase are brought about in a manner 

 pretty much alike. The animal and vegetable semina are found to be alike the 

 rudiments of their future offspring ; and both alike require only a proper re- 

 pository to preserve them from injuries, and proper juices to advance their growth, 

 and bring them to perfection- 

 Glasses are the means by which these secrets in nature are discovered to us. 

 The eye, assisted by a good microscope, can distinguish plainly, in the semen 

 masculinum of animals, myriads of animalcules alive and vigorous, though so 

 exceedingly minute, that it is computed 3000 millions of them are not equal to 

 a grain of sand, whose diameter is but the 100th part of an inch : and the 

 same instrument will inform us beyond all doubt, that the farinae of vegetables 

 are nothing else but a congeries of minute granula, whose shapes are constant 

 and uniform as the plants they are taken from. And as the seeds of plants are 

 found by repeated experiments to be unprolific, if the farina be not permitted to 

 shed, it has been supposed, that all its granula contain seminal plants of their 

 own kind. 



The growth of animals and vegetables seems to be nothing else but a gradual 



* This is one of those papers which have not escaped the animadversions of Sir John Hill, who 

 very properly observes that Mr. Baker's supposed enabryo plant is in reality no other than the germen 

 with its feathered stigmata. If the paper be worth preserving, it is that it may operate as a proper 

 caution to unguarded observers. 



