History of British Entomostraca. 401 



the animal draws up its food as it were by suction, like other 

 aquatic insects. He describes, however, the motions of the insect 

 very well, and mentions them as being frequently quite red, or of 

 the colour of blood. This memoir of Swammerdam is republished 

 in his " Biblia Naturae/' where the same figures are also given.* 

 Merrett, in his " Pinax rerum Britannicarum," &c. London, 1677j 

 mentions these insects, or at least is said to intend them by the fol- 

 lowing short description, — " Vermes minimi rubri, aquam stagna- 

 lem colore sanguineo inficientes, unde vulgus dira portendit." Fran- 

 cisco Redi, in his "■ Osservazioni utorno agli animali viventi che si 

 trovano negli animali viventi," Firenzi, 1684, gives three figures 

 of a species which Muller quotes as the Pulex (his pennata,) 

 but which are so very bad that it is difficult to make them out. 

 He calls them by the vague name of " Animaletli aquatici." In 

 his " Opera" published at Napoli, 1687, he gives the same figures 

 as in the former work, and mentions them as " Tre anima- 

 letti aquatici, che vivorno nelle acqua stagnant!, e ne' pozzi, 

 osservati col microscopia." Bradley, in his " Philosophical Ac- 

 count of the Works of Nature," London 1739, gives a long de- 

 scription of a " wonderful insect, which had but one eye," found in 

 the river Thames, with " a head somewhat like that of a bird," and 

 legs " like the claws of an eagle ;" the antennas are described as 

 " two branches, resembling the dugs of animals," and which he says 

 " we might suppose were designed for suckling their young" ! " for 

 this insect," he adds, " is viviparous, which is contrary to other in- 

 sects before-mentioned ; for we did not only observe the young ones 

 alive in the belly of the mother, but likewise saw several of them 

 excluded from her body." The figure which he gives is equally 

 good as his description, both of them shewing the force of imagina- 

 tion, for it is evident this " wonderful insect" is nothing more than 

 the Daphnia pulex. Trembley, in his " Memoires pour servir a 

 FHistoire d'un genre de Polypes d'eau douce," 1744, takes notice of, 

 and figures a species of Daphnia under the name of " Puceron bran- 

 chu," which seems to be the favourite food of the polypes, as they 

 devour them in great numbers. It is the Daphnia pulex, and his 

 observations on this subject, and figures also, are quoted and copied 

 by Adams in his " JV1 icrographia Illustrata," published in London 

 1746. Linnaeus in his " Systema Natura," 1744, describes the same 

 species shortly under the name of Monoculus pulex arborescens, and 

 in his " Fauna Suecica," 1746, and " Entomologia Faunae Suecicae," 



* Vide Leydea edition, 1737. Tome i. p. 86 ; Tome ii. tab. 31. tig. 1 — 3. 



