ZOOLOGY AND BOTANY. MI0KO80OPY. ETC. 577 



It is, however, very probable that this last was the one in question, 

 for Poiresc, answering Aleandro on tlie 1st July, 1624, wrote: — 



" But the occhiale mentioned by Signer Galileo, which makes flies 

 like hens, is of his own invention, of which he made also a copy for 

 Archduke Albert of pious memory, which used to be placed on the 

 ground, where a fly would be seen the size of a hen, and the instrument 

 was of no greater height than an ordinary dining-room table." 



Which description answers far better to a Dutch telescope used as a 

 Microscope in the same way exactly as Galileo had used it, rather than 

 to a Microscope with two convex lenses. (12) 



One cannot find any further particulars concerning Galileo's 

 " occhialini" (so he had christened them in the year 1624), either in 

 Bartholomew Imperiali's letter of September 5th, 1624, in which he 

 thanks Galileo for having given him one in every ivay perfect, or in that 

 of Galileo to Cesi of September 23rd, 1624, accompanying the gift of an 

 " occMalino" or in Federico Cesi's answer of October 26th, or in a 

 letter of Bartholomeo Balbi to Galileo of October 25th, 1624, which 

 speaks of the longing with which Balbi is awaiting " the little occldale 

 of the new invention," or in that of Galileo to Cesar Marsili of Decem- 

 ber 17th in the same year, in which Galileo says to the learned 

 Bolognese, " that he would have sent him an occMalino to see close the 

 smallest things, but the instrument-maker, who is making the tube, has 

 not yet finished it." (13) This, however, is how Galileo speaks of it in 

 his letter to Federico Cesi written from Florence on September 23rd, 

 1624, more than three months after his departure from Eome : — 



" I send your Excellency an occMalino, by which to see close the 

 smallest things, which I hope may give you no small pleasure and 

 entertainment, as it does to me. I have been long in sending it, because 

 I could not perfect it before, having experienced some difficulty in find- 

 ing the way of cutting the glasses perfectly. The object must be placed 

 on the movable circle which is at the base, and moved to see it all ; for 

 that which one sees at one look is but a small part. And because 

 the distance between the lens and the object must be most exact, in 

 looking at objects which have relief one must be able to move the 

 glass nearer or further, according as one is looking at this or that part ; 

 therefore the little tube is made movable on its stand or guide, as we 

 may wish to call it. It must also be used in very bright clear weather, 

 or even in the sun itself, remembering that the object must be sufficiently 

 illuminated. I have contemplated very many animals with infinite 

 admiration, amongst which the flea is most horrible, the gnat and the 

 moth are most beautiful ; and it was with great satisfaction that I have 

 seen how^ flies and other little animals manage to walk sticking to the 

 glass and even feet upwards. But your Excellency will have the oppor- 

 tunity of observing thousands and thousands of other details of the most 

 curious kind, of which I beg you to give me account. In fact, one may 

 contemplate endlessly the greatness of nature, and how subtilely she 

 works, and with what unspeakable diligence. — P.S. The little tube 

 is in two pieces, and you may lengthen it or shorten it at pleasure." 



It would be very strange, knowing Galileo's character, that, in 

 1624, and after the attacks made on him for having perhaps a little too 

 much allowed the Dutch telescope to be considered his invention, 

 he should have been induced to imitate Drebbel's glass with the two 

 convex lenses, and have wished to make them pass as his own inventioja, 



