ants’ eggs. 
767 
1 was about to be witness to one of the most wonderful pbenoinena 
of nature, supposing that these molecules, v\hieh were now increas- 
ing or diminishing their number, or performing their revolutions in the 
glass, would soon assume the form of a new animal, of which they were 
the living materials. My impatience led me to detach two from the 
most numerous group, imagining that this number might perhaps be 
more favourable to the exfiected metamorphosis. I was, however, 
mistaken. These I examined with more attention than the rest, and 
the following account is of their proceedings — Like two strong 
and active wrestlers, they immediately rushed together, and attacked 
each other side by side : sometimes one would dive, leaving its adver- 
sary at the surface of the water; cue would describe a circular move- 
ment, while the other remained at rest in the centre : their motions at 
length became so rapid, as no longer to allow me to distinguish one 
from the other. Having quitted them for a short time, on my return 
I found them reunited as before, and amicably moving round the edge 
of their glass by their common exertions.” 
The same author has also given an account of a singular animal, 
which has a considerable resemblance to a little lizard; its body is of 
a firm gelatinous consistence; its head is furnished on each side with 
two small gelatinous horns, of which the two hiudermost are situated 
the farthest inward ; its body is provided with four open fan-like 
paws, and some appendages near the insertion of the tail, and termi- 
nates like that of a lizard ; the ridge of the back is divided the whole 
way dow'u by a band of deep blue ; the rest of its body, as well as 
the inside of its paws, is of a bright silvery white. It appears to be 
very sluggish in its motions ; and when disturbed by the finger, 
merely turr.ed its belly upwards, soon afterw'ards resuming its former 
position. Martiniere caught it during a calm at the landing-place on 
the Bashee Islands. 
Ants’ Eggs. 
These are a kind of little white balls, found in the nests of ants, 
ordinarily supposed to be the ova of this insect. Later naturalists 
have observed, that these are not properly the ants’ eggs, hut the young 
brood themselves in their first state ; they are so many little vermiculi, 
wrapped in a film or skin, composed of a sort of silk, wdiich they spin 
out of themselves, as silk worms and caterpillars do. At first they 
are hardly observed to stir ; hut after a few days’ continuance, they 
exhibit a feeble motion of flexion and extension, and begin to look 
yellowish and hairy, shaped like small maggots, in which shape they 
grow lip till they are almost as large as ants. When they pass their 
metamorphosis, and appear in their proper shape, they have a small 
black speck on them, close to the anus of the included ant, whicli 
M. Leuwenhoek, probably enough imagines to be the feces voided 
by it. 
Sir Edward King, M. D. opened several of these vulgarly reputed 
eggs ; in some of which he found only a maggot, in the circumstances 
above described ; while in another the maggot had begun to put 
on the shape of an ant about the head, having two little yellow specks 
