310 History of British Entomostraca. 



is very brief, and the figure which he gives is very bad ; being bare- 

 ly sufficient to enable us to make out that it is the Cyclops quadri- 

 cornis that it is meant to represent. Leeuwenhoek appears to have 

 been the first to have taken any lengthened or particular notice of 

 the genus. In his " Epistolse ad Societatem Regiam Anglicam," &c. 

 (Epistola 121, written in 1699,) he gives a good many details of an 

 insect which he found in fresh water, and whose habits he seems to 

 have studied with considerable attention. He gives a figure of it 

 also, which, though far from being correct, suffices to shew us that 

 his insect is also the C quadricornis. His observations upon it are 

 very interesting, and he discovered amongst other things worthy of 

 note, the great difference there is between the young and old in- 

 sects, though he did not carry his observations so far as to trace the 

 transformations which take place. In " No. 283 of the Philosophi- 

 cal Transactions, for January and February 1703," the same au- 

 thor gives a description of a polype (the Hydra viridis of Muller) 

 growing upon the Lemna or duck-weed, which calls forth another 

 paper from an anonymous correspondent in " No. 288 for November 

 and December 1703," in which the writer mentions his having fre- 

 quently observed the same polype growing upon insects, especially 

 upon " two sorts of the crustaceous kind." These two species of in- 

 sects, which he states are monoculous, he gives figures of, sufficient- 

 ly correct to shew them to be the C. quadricornis and Castor, the 

 first being a tolerable figure, though the^second is very indifferent. 

 The same writer also takes notice of a third insect of the same ge- 

 nus, which is much smaller and like a shrimp, but which he could 

 never figure, evidently the C. minutus. Baker in his " Microscope, 

 made-easy, 17*43," makes a few remarks upon these same insects, and 

 copies the figures from the Philosophical Transactions, and in his 

 " Employment for the Microscope, 1764," he publishes a letter from a 

 correspondent, who gives a variety of details with regard to the insect 

 which Leeuwenhoek describes, finds great fault with his figure, but 

 gives a much worse one himself! De Geer in his " Memoires pour 

 serviral'histoire deslnsectes," Vol. vii. published in 1778, is the next 

 author, I believe, who has entered into any details with regard to any 

 of the insects of this genus. He describes at considerable length, and 

 figures with tolerable accuracy, the C. quadricornis, and confirms 

 many of Leeuwenhoek's statements with regard to it, particularly 

 the great difference between the old and the young insect. Otho Fri- 

 dericus Muller,* is the next succeeding author who has particularly 

 noticed this genus. Previous to his time,t with the exception of de- 



* Entomostraca, seu Insecta testacea, &c. 1785. 



f " Unicum quidem ante annum 1769, quo in Synopsi Monoculorum quatuor 



