Chapter 33

This is a Creature so officious, that ’twill be known to every one at one time or other, so busie, and so impudent, that it will be intruding it self in every ones company, and so proud and aspiring withall, that it fears not to trample on the best, and affects nothing so much as a Crown; feeds and lives very high, and that makes it so saucy, as to pull any one by the ears that comes in its way, and will never be quiet till it has drawn blood: it is troubled at nothing so much as at a man that scratches his head, as knowing that man is plotting and contriving some mischief against it, and that makes it oftentime sculk into some meaner and lower place, and run behind a mans back, though it go very much against the hair; which ill conditions of it having made it better known then trusted, would exempt me from making any further description of it, did not my faithful _Mercury_, my _Microscope_, bring me other information of it. For this has discovered to me, by means of a very bright light cast on it, that it is a Creature of a very odd shape; it has a head shap’d like that exprest in 35. _Scheme_ marked with A, which seems almost Conical, but is a little flatted on the upper and under sides, at the biggest part of which, on either side behind the head (as it were, being the place where other Creatures ears stand) are placed its two black shining goggle eyes BB, looking backwards, and fenced round with several small _cilia_, or hairs that incompass it, so that it seems this Creature has no very good foresight: It does not seem to have any eye-lids, and therefore perhaps its eyes were so placed, that it might the better cleanse them with its fore-legs; and perhaps this may be the reason, why they so much avoid and run from the light behind them, for being made to live in the shady and dark recesses of the hair, and thence probably their eye having a great aperture, the open and clear light, especially that of the Sun, must needs very much offend them; to secure these eyes from receiving any injury from the hairs through which it passes, it has two horns that grow before it, in the place where one would have thought the eyes should be; each of these CC hath four joynts, which are fringed, as ’twere, with small brisles, from which to the tip of its snout D, the head seems very round and tapering, ending in a very sharp nose D, which seems to have a small hole, and to be the passage through which he sucks the blood. Now whereas if it be plac’d on its back, with its belly upwards, as it is in the 35. _Scheme_, it seems in several Positions to have a resemblance of chaps, or jaws, as is represented in the Figure by EE, yet in other postures those dark strokes disappear; and having kept several of them in a box for two or three dayes, so that for all that time they had nothing to feed on, I found, upon letting one creep on my hand, that it immediately fell to sucking, and did neither seem to thrust its nose very deep into the skin, nor to open any kind of mouth, but I could plainly perceive a small current of blood, which came directly from its snout, and past into its belly; and about A there seem’d a contrivance, somewhat resembling a Pump, pair of Bellows, or Heart, for by a very swift _systole_ and _diastole_ the blood seem’d drawn from the nose, and forced into the body. It did not seem at all, though I viewed it a good while as it was sucking, to thrust more of its nose into the skin then the very snout D, nor did it cause the least discernable pain, and yet the blood seem’d to run through its head very quick and freely, so that it seems there is no part of the skin but the blood is dispers’d into, nay, even into the _cuticula_; for had it thrust its whole nose in from D to CC, it would not have amounted to the supposed thickness of that _tegument_, the length of the nose being not more then a three hundredth part of an inch. It has six legs, covered with a very transparent shell, and joynted exactly like a Crab’s, or Lobster’s; each leg is divided into six parts by these joynts, and those have here and there several small hairs; and at the end of each leg it has two claws, very properly adapted for its peculiar use, being thereby inabled to walk very securely both on the skin and hair; and indeed this contrivance of the feet is very curious, and could not be made more commodiously and compendiously, for performing both these requisite motions, of walking and climbing up the hair of a mans head, then it is: for, by having the lesser claw (a) set so much short of the bigger (b) when it walks on the skin the shorter touches not, and then the feet are the same with those of a Mite, and several other small Insects, but by means of the small joynts of the longer claw it can bend it round, and so with both claws take hold of a hair, in the manner represented in the Figure, the long transparent Cylinder FFF, being a Man’s hair held by it.

The _Thorax_ seem’d cas’d with another kind of substance then the belly, namely, with a thin transparent horny substance, which upon the fasting of the Creature did not grow flaccid; through this I could plainly see the blood, suck’d from my hand, to be variously distributed, and mov’d to and fro; and about G there seem’d a pretty big white substance, which seem’d to be moved within its _thorax_; besides, there appear’d very many small milk-white vessels, which crost over the breast between the legs, out of which, on either side, were many small branchings, these seem’d to be the veins and arteries, for that which is analogus to blood in all Insects is milk-white.

The belly is covered with a transparent substance likewise, but more resembling a skin then a shell, for ’tis grain’d all over the belly just like the skin in the palms of a man’s hand, and when the belly is empty, grows very flaccid and wrinkled; at the upper end of this is placed the stomach HH, and perhaps also the white spot II may be the liver or _pancreas_, which, by the _peristalick_ motion of the guts, is a little mov’d to and fro, not with a _systole_ and _diastole_, but rather with a thronging or justling motion. Viewing one of these Creatures, after it had fasted two dayes, all the hinder part was lank and flaccid, and the white spot II hardly mov’d, most of the white branchings disappear’d, and most also of the redness or sucked blood in the guts, the _peristaltick_ motion of which was scarce discernable; but upon the suffering it to suck, it presently fill’d the skin of the belly, and of the six scolop’d embosments on either side, as full as it could be stuft, the stomach and guts were as full as they could hold; the _peristaltick_ motion of the gut grew quick, and the justling motion of II accordingly; multitudes of milk-white vessels seem’d quickly filled, and turgid, which were perhaps the veins and arteries and the Creature was so greedy, that though it could not contain more, yet it continued sucking as fast as ever, and as fast emptying it self behind: the digestion of this Creature must needs be very quick, for though I perceiv’d the blood thicker and blacker when suck’d, yet, when in the guts, it was of a very lovely ruby colour, and that part of it, which was digested into the veins, seemed white; whence it appears, that a further digestion of blood may make it milk, at least of a resembling colour: What is else observable in the figure of this Creature, may be seen by the 35. _Scheme_.

* * * * *

Observ. LV. _Of _Mites_._

The least of _Reptiles_ I have hitherto met with, is a Mite, a Creature whereof there are some so very small, that the sharpest sight, unassisted with Glasses, is not able to discern them, though, being white of themselves, they move on a black and smooth surface; and the Eggs, out of which these Creatures seem to be hatch’d, are yet smaller, those being usually not above a four or five hundredth part of a well grown Mite, and those well grown Mites not much above one hundredth of an inch in thickness; so that according to this reckoning there may be no less then a million of well grown Mites contain’d in a cubick inch, and five hundred times as many Eggs.

Notwithstanding which minuteness a good _Microscope_ discovers those small movable specks to be very prettily shap’d Insects, each of them furnished with eight well shap’d and proportion’d legs, which are each of them joynted or bendable in eight several places, or joynts, each of which is covered, for the most part, with a very transparent shell, and the lower end of the shell of each joynt is fringed with several small hairs; the contrivance of the joynts seems the very same with that of Crabs and Lobsters legs, and like those also, they are each of them terminated with a very sharp claw or point; four of these legs are so placed, that they seem to draw forwards, the other four are placed in a quite contrary position, thereby to keep the body backwards when there is occasion.

[15]The body, as in other larger Insects, consists of three regions or parts; the hinder or belly A, seems covered with one intire shell, the middle, or chest, seems divided into two shells BC. which running one within the other, the Mite is able to shrink in and thrust out as it finds occasion, as it can also the snout D. The whole body is pretty transparent, so that being look’d on against the light, divers motions within its body may be perceived; as also all the parts are much more plainly delineable, then in other postures, to the light. The shell, especially that which covers the back, is curiously polisht, so that ’tis easie to see, as in a _convex_ Looking-glass, or _foliated_ Glass-ball, the picture of all the objects round about; up and down, in several parts of its body, it has several small long white hairs growing out of its shell, which are often longer then the whole body, and are represented too short in the first and second Figures; they seem all pretty straight and pliable, save only two upon the forepart of its body, which seem to be the horns, as may be seen in the Figures; the first whereof is a prospect of a smaller sort of Mites (which are usually more plump) as it was _passant_ to and fro; the second is the prospect of one fixt on its tail (by means of a little mouth-glew rub’d on the object plate) exhibiting the manner of the growing of the legs, together with their several joynts.

This Creature is very much diversify’d in shape, colour, and divers other properties, according to the nature of the substance out of which it seems to be ingendred and nourished, being in one substance more long, in another more round, in some more hairy, in others more smooth, in this nimble, in that slow, here pale and whiter, there browner, blacker, more transparent, &c. I have observed it to be resident almost on all kinds of substances that are mouldy, or putrifying, and have seen it very nimbly meshing through the thickets of mould, and sometimes to lye _dormant_ underneath them; and ’tis not unlikely, but that it may feed on that vegetating substance, _spontaneous Vegetables_ seeming a food proper enough for _spontaneous Animals_,

But whether indeed this Creature, or any other, be such or not, I cannot positively, from any Experiment, or Observation, I have yet made, determine. But, as I formerly hinted, it seems probable, that some kind of wandring Mite may sow, as ’twere, the first seeds, or lay the first eggs, in those places, which Nature has instructed them to know convenient for the hatching and nourishing their young; and though perhaps the prime Parent might be of a shape very differing from what the offspring, after a little while, by reason of the substance they feed on, or the Region (as ’twere) they inhabite; yet perhaps even one of these alter’d progeny, wandering again from its native soil, and lighting on by chance the same place from whence its prime Parent came, and there settling, and planting, may produce a generation of Mites of the same shapes and properties with the first wandring Mite: And from some such accidents as these, I am very apt to think, the most sorts of Animals, generally accounted _spontaneous_, have their _origination_, and all those various sorts of Mites, that are to be met with up and down in divers putrifying substances, may perhaps be all of the same kind, and have sprung from one and the same sort of Mites at the first.

* * * * *

Observ. LVI. _Of a small Creature hatch’d on a Vine._

There is, almost all the Spring and Summer time, a certain small, round, white Cobweb, as ’twere, about the bigness of a Pea, which sticks very close and fast to the stocks of Vines nayl’d against a warm wall: being attentively viewed, they seem cover’d, upon the upper side of them, with a small husk, not unlike the scale, or shell of a Wood-louse, or Hog-louse, a small Insect usually found about rotten wood, which upon touching presently rouls it self into the form of a peppercorn: Separating several of these from the stock, I found them, with my _Microscope_, to consist of a shell, which now seemed more likely to be the husk of one of these Insects: And the fur seem’d a kind of cobweb, consisting of abundance of small filaments, or sleaves of cobwebs. In the midst of this, if they were not hatch’d, and run away before, the time of which hatching was usually about the latter end of _June_, or beginning of _July_, I have often found abundance of small brown Eggs, such as A and B in the second Figure of the 36. _Scheme_, much about the bigness of Mites Eggs; and at other times, multitudes of small Insects, shaped exactly like that in the third Figure marked with X. Its head large, almost half the bigness of its body, which is usual in the _fœtus_ of most Creatures. It had two small black eyes _aa_, and two small long joynted and brisled horns _bb_. The hinder part of its body seem’d to consist of nine scales, and the last ended in a forked tayl, much like that of a _Cutio_, or Wood-louse, out of which grew two long hairs; they ran to and fro very swiftly, and were much of the bigness of a common Mite, but some of them less: The longest of them seem’d not the hundredth part of an inch, and the Eggs usually not above half as much. They seemed to have six legs, which were not visible in this I have here delineated, by reason they were drawn under its body.

If these Minute creatures were _Wood-lice_ (as indeed from their own shape and from the frame, the skin, or shell, that grows on them, one may with great probability ghess) it affords us an Instance, whereof perhaps there are not many like in Nature, and that is, of the prodigious increase of these Creatures, after they are hatch’d and run about; for a common Wood-louse, of about half an inch long, is no less then a hundred and twenty five thousand times bigger then one of these, which though indeed it seems very strange, yet I have observed the young ones of some Spiders have almost kept the same proportion to their Dam.

This, methinks, if it be so, does in the next place hint a Quæry, which may perhaps deserve a little further examination: And that is, Whether there be not many of those minute Creatures, such as Mites, and the like, which, though they are commonly thought of otherwise, are only the _pully_, or young ones, of much bigger Insects, and not the generating, or parent _Insect_, that has layd those Eggs; for having many times observ’d those Eggs, which usually are found in great abundance where Mites are found, it seems something strange, that so small an Animal should have an Egg so big in proportion to its body. Though on the other side, I must confess, that having kept divers of those Mites inclosed in a box for a good while, I did not find them very much augmented beyond their usual bigness.

What the husk and cobweb of this little white substance should be, I cannot imagine, unless it be, that the old one, when impregnated with Eggs, should there stay, and fix it self on the Vine, and dye, and all the body by degrees should rot, save only the husk, and the Eggs in the body: And the heat, or fire, as it were, of the approaching Sun-beams should vivifie those Relicts of the corrupted Parent, and out of the ashes, as ’twere, (as it is fabled of the _Phœnix_) should raise a new _offspring_ for the perpetuation of the _Species_. Nor will the cobweb, as it were, in which these Eggs are inclos’d, make much against this Conjecture; for we may, by those cobwebs that are carried up and down the Air after a Fog (which with my _Microscope_ I have discovered to be made up of an infinite company of small filaments or threads) learn, that such a texture of body may be otherwise made then by the spinning of a Worm.

* * * * *

Observ. LVII. _Of the _Eels_ in Vinegar._

Of these small Eels, which are to be found in divers sorts of Vinegar, I have little to add besides their Picture, which you may find drawn in the third Figure of the 25. _Scheme_: That is, they were shaped much like an Eel, save only that their nose A, (which was a little more opacous then the rest of their body) was a little sharper, and longer, in proportion to their body, and the wrigling motion of their body seem’d to be onely upwards and downwards, whereas that of Eels is onely side-wayes: They seem’d to have a more opacous part about B, which might, perhaps, be their Gills; it seeming always the same proportionate distant from their nose, from which, to the tip of their tail, C, their body seem’d to taper.

Taking several of these out of their Pond of Vinegar, by the net of a small piece of filtring Paper, and laying them on a black smooth Glass plate, I found that they could wriggle and winde their body, as much almost as a Snake, which made me doubt, whether they were a kind of Eal or Leech.

I shall add no other observations made on this minute Animal, being prevented herein by many excellent ones already publish’d by the ingenious, Doctor _Power_, among his _Microscopical_ Observations, save onely that a quantity of Vinegar repleat with them being included in a small Viol, and stop’d very close from the ambient air, all the included Worms in a very short time died, as if they had been stifled.

And that their motion seems (contrary to what we may observe in the motion of all other Infects) exceeding slow. But the reason of it seems plain, for being to move to and fro after that manner which they do, by waving onely, or wrigling their body; the tenacity, or glutinousness, and the density or resistance of the fluid _medium_ becomes so exceeding sensible to their extremely minute bodies, that it is to me indeed a greater wonder that they move them so fast as they do, then that they move them no faster. For what a vastly greater proportion have they of their superficies to their bulk, then Eels or other larger Fishes, and next, the tenacity and density of the liquor being much the same to be moved, both by the one and the other, the resistance or impediment thence arising to the motions made through it, must be almost infinitely greater to the small one then to the great. This we find experimentally verify’d in the Air, which though a _medium_ a thousand times more rarify’d then the water, the resistance of it to motions made through it, is yet so sensible to very minute bodies, that a Down-feather (the least of whose parts seem yet bigger then these Eels, and many of them almost incomparably bigger, such as the quill and stalk) is suspended by it, and carried to and fro as if it had no weight.

* * * * *

Observ. LVIII. _Of a new Property in the _Air_, and several other transparent _Mediums_ nam’d _Inflection_, whereby very many considerable _Phænomena_ are attempted to be solv’d, and divers other uses are hinted._

Since the Invention (and perfecting in some measure) of _Telescopes_, it has been observ’d by several, that the Sun and Moon neer the Horizon, are disfigur’d (losing that exactly-smooth terminating circular limb, which they are observ’d to have when situated neerer the Zenith) and are bounded with an edge every way (especially upon the right and left sides) ragged and indented like a Saw: which inequality of their limbs, I have further observ’d, not to remain always the same, but to be continually chang’d by a kind of fluctuating motion, not unlike that of the waves of the Sea, so as that part of the limb, which was but even now nick’d or indented in, is now protuberant, and will presently be sinking again; neither is this all but the whole body of the Luminaries, do in the _Telescope_, seem to be depress’d and flatted, the upper, and more especially the under side appearing neerer to the middle then really they are, and the right and left appearing more remote: whence the whole _Area_ seems to be terminated by a kind of Oval. It is further observ’d, that the body, for the most part, appears red, or of some colour approaching neer unto it, as some kind of yellow; and this I have always mark’d, that the more the limb is flatted or ovalled, the more red does the body appear, though not always the contrary. It is further observable, that both fix’d Stars and Planets, the neerer they appear to the Horizon, the more red and dull they look, and the more they are observ’d to twinkle; in so much, that I have seen the Dog-starr to vibrate so strong and bright a radiation of light, as almost to dazle my eyes, and presently, almost to disappear. It is also observable, that those bright scintillations neer the Horizon, are not by much so quick and sudden in their consecutions of one another, as the nimbler twinklings of Stars neerer the Zenith. This is also notable, that the Starrs neer the Horizon, are twinkled with several colours; so as sometimes to appear red, sometimes more yellow, and sometimes blue, and this when the Starr is a pretty way elevated above the Horizon. I have further, very often seen some of the small Starrs of the fifth or sixth magnitude, at certain times to disappear for a small moment of time, and again appear more conspicuous, and with a greater luster. I have several times, with my naked eye, seen many smaller Starrs, such as may be call’d of the seventh or eighth magnitude to appear for a short space, and then vanish, which, by directing a small _Telescope_ towards that part they appear’d and disappear’d in; I could presently find to be indeed small Starrs so situate, as I had seen them with my naked eye, and to appear twinkling like the ordinary visible Stars; nay, in examining some very notable parts of the Heaven, with a three foot Tube, me thought I now and then, in several parts of the constellation, could perceive little twinklings of Starrs, making a very short kind of apparition, and presently vanishing, but noting diligently the places where they thus seem’d to play at boe-peep, I made use of a very good twelve foot Tube, and with that it was not uneasie to see those, and several other degrees of smaller Starrs, and some smaller yet, that seem’d again to appear and disappear, and these also by giving the same Object-glass a much bigger aperture, I could plainly and constantly see appear in their former places; so that I have observ’d some twelve several magnitudes of Starrs less then those of the six magnitudes commonly recounted in the Globes.

It has been observ’d and confirm’d by the accuratest Observations of the best of our modern Astronomers, that all the Luminous bodies appear above the Horizon, when they really are below it. So that the Sun and Moon have both been seen above the Horizon, whil’st the Moon has been in an Eclipse. I shall not here instance in the great refractions, that the tops of high mountains, seen at a distance, have been found to have; all which seem to argue the Horizontal refraction, much greater then it is hitherto generally believ’d.