C >93 ] 
the fpring, uithout any other aid than the warmth 
of the feafon. Nor is a Tingle infed to beefteemed 
the whole produd of an egg, fince it has been 
clearly fliewn, that ten generations fuccecd each 
other ; the firft rudiments of which mud; have been 
originally in the egg, as the females have no com- 
munication with the males but in autumn. The 
wonder however becomes dill greater, when we con- 
fider the number of individuals in each generation ; 
this being, I am fully convinced, at a medium, not 
lefs than fifty. Whoever pleafes to multiply by fifty, 
nine times over, may by this means form fome no- 
tion of the great number of infedfs produced from 
a lingle egg j but will at the fame time find that 
number fo immenfe, as to exceed all comprehen- 
fion., and indeed to be little diort of infinity. How 
far this can be reconciled with any theory of gene- 
ration which the ingenuity of man has hitherto in- 
vented, may be a contemplation not altogether un- 
worthy our curiofity, though I fear it will not turn 
out much to the credit of our reafoning faculties. 
The ancient dodrine of equivocal generation, as 
alfo that from an admixtion of the feminal matter 
of both fexes, being now quite rejeded by all mo- 
dern naturalids ; two other opinions feem to have 
fprung up in their dead. While one party aderts, 
that the original organization of the feetus cxifts in 
the ovary of the female, and that it is vivified by a 
fubtile fpirit in the fpermatic fluid of the male ; the 
other lays it down for a certainty, that the eggs of 
the female are only to be conddered as a proper nidus, 
provided for the reception of thofe minute animal- 
cules, with which the male femen is found to 
VoL. LXI, C c abound 
