Of the Oyfter, 
ioy 
\ 
Of the ovfter. 
* 
M ANY little round living animalcules have been 
found in the clear liquor of an oyfter fuppofed 
to be the animalcules in the roe or femen. 
Mr. Leeuwenhoek opened an oyfter on the fourth of 
Auguft, (which is the time that oyfters are fuppofed to 
breed) and took out of it a prodigious number of minute 
oyfters, all alive and fwimming brifkly in the liquor, by 
the means of exceeding fmall organs, extending a little 
way beyond their fhells, which he calls their beards; in 
thefe he could diftinguifh the joining of the fhells, and 
perceived fome that were dead, with their fhells gaping, 
and as like large oyfters in form as one egg is like 
another. 
Upon opening a female oyfter, incredible multitudes 
of minute oyfters, covered with little fhells, perfectly 
tranfparent, were plainly feen therein; in another they 
were found of a brownifh colour, without any apparent 
life or motion. 
Monf. Azout obferved a fhining clammy matter, which 
ftuck to the fhells of oyfters, and being drawn out, fhone a 
in the air its whole length, which was four or five lines, 
and continued fo for a confiderable time when laid on the 
obferver’s hand, and afterwards opening more than twenty 
dozen in the dark, and then examining fome of this 
fhining matter with a microfcope, he found it to conftft: 
of three forts of real worms. One was whitifh, having 
twenty-four or twenty-five forked feet on each fide, with 
a black fpeck on one fide of the head, taken by him for a 
cryftalline, 
y Arc. Nat. Tom. ii. Part i. p, 52. 
No, 12. p. 203. 
* Phil. Tranf. 
