one ten inches long, and which was not nearly fo thick as the first string of a violin. This worm so much resembled a piece of cat-gut, that if one did not fee it move, one could hardly believe it was an animal.

The Water Tipule. This must be fome particular species for in general the water Tipulæ have feet and what is uncommon, and what no one has as yet obferved, I know fome of them which may be faid to be a kind of quadruped. They have two kinds of legs or crutches at the anterior part of their body, and two at the hinder part. These legs, which is another fingularity, are ftiff and without joints. The anterior ones, a third fingularity, inftead of being provided each with a pointed nail, are armed with a circle of hooks, and both feet are moved at once, but with a motion always parallel and uniform from top to bottom, and vice verfa. I know not whether the pofterior ones be moveable; I have always found them stiff like sticks. If the four limbs I have juft mentioned, can be called true feet, this infect will make an exception to the rule I laid down in the preceeding Chapter, to wit, that no creeping infect is a quadruped.

PAGE 44, 1. 7.

Hippocampus. As the fulcra of this little animal form a perfect fkeleton, it ought rather to be confidered as a filh than as an infect.

PAGE 44, 1. 21.

Even the inteftines of animals. Of all animals, none perhaps are fo liable to nourish worms in their inteftines as infects. The ichneumons, which are of many different fpecies, derive their origin for the most part from larvæ which have fed on other infects and deftroyed them.

PAGE 44, 1. 31.

I know a fpecies of water flea. It is far from being cer tain that there are any infects with only two feet. None fuch are found among thofe that live on land. God feems to have diftinguithed by this character men and birds from the rest of terreftrial animals. It is not even very certain that there are bipeds among the aquatic infects. Thofe that

pafs for fuch are the pulices aquatici, mentioned by the author, and the larva of the (Afilus) but if we examine accurately what are fuppofed to be the feet of both these animals, we will find that, as to the Pulex aquaticus, they are rather a fort of oars, which the animal ufes in its progreffive motion, than true feet: for far from having the form of feet, they are two trunks placed near the head. They divide each of them into two branches whence other fmaller branches iffue which circumstances do not agree with the idea we have of feet, nor indeed are they fit for performing the functions of feet. But even though thefe oars fhould pafs for true feet, the fame pulices feem to have others under the belly, which from their minutenefs feem to have efcaped the obfervation of Leffer, and which prevent thefe animals from being confidered as bipeds. As to the larva of the Afilus, what would have been its feet are two fhort articulated members, two forts of beards which iffue from the fides of its mouth. Their fituation and minutenefs ought rather to make them pafs for beards. than for feet, although Swammerdam affirms that they are cafes for the extremities of the feet of the future fly. Moreover this animal when arrived at its perfect ftate, has fix legs, and accordingly it cannot with propriety be claffed with bipeds. But if infects have not hitherto furnished us with certain examples of animals with two feet, one would perhaps be furprised to hear that they furnish us frequently with examples of thofe that have but one. However ftrange this may appear, we do not hesitate, with M. Reaumur, to mention a great number of Bivalve thelled animals poffeffing a mufcular organ which they extend a great way beyond their fhells. This organ is their foot, and they use it in tranfporting themfelves from place to place.

PAGE 45, 1. 3.

The Formicaleo. It is no doubt from the resemblance in the name, that the Formicaleo is placed among the Formica or ants, thefe infects refembling each other in nothing else. The first in form rather looks like a spider; it devours ants and is therefore called formicaleo.

* Linnæus calls it Myrmeleon Formicarium.

PAGE 45, 1. 20.

Land and water Scorpions. The flat and winged Cimex commonly

commonly named the water fcorpion has only fix feet. The land ones, at leaft fuch of the fpecies as are known to me, have ten feet, counting the two large fore feet which are armed with claws or pincers.

PAGE 45, 1. 24.

The caterpillars called geometra. These caterpillars have generally ten feet. The fpecies that have twelve are very rare. I know but three forts. None have been found, fo far as I know, which have eight feet, though a first rate naturalift fuppofes there may be fuch.

PAGE 45, 1.25.

The common caterpillars. Thefe have fixteen feet, comprehending the two hinder ones; but the author, it would feem does not count them, I know not for what reason, fince he reckons the hinder ones of the geometræ among their feet. It is even the more neceffary that these should be reckoned in the common caterpillars because there is a fort of caterpillars with fourteen feet, that have no hind ones. These, with regard to the number of their feet, would be confounded with the common caterpillars if the pofterior feet of fuch as have them were not to be counted. Befides, the caterpillars which want the hind feet, there are alfo fome other fpecies which do not want them, and yet have only fourteen feet. These, and the former are the only ones that can be ranked in the clafs which the author here fpeaks of.

PAGE 45, 1. 27.

We obferve eighteen feet. There is no true caterpillar known which has eighteen feet. Thofe which have more than fixteen and which refemble caterpillars are as M. de Reaumur names them pfeudo-caterpillars, that is, fuch as though pretty fimilar to caterpillars are not really fo, as they naturally change into flies with four wings (Ichneumons or Tenthredos) while the true caterpillars change into butterflies or moths. If there be any pfeudo-caterpillars with eighteen feet, they must be very rare, for I have never found any. All thofe I have feen had twenty or twentytwo feet, and indeed that which Leffer here fpeaks of, on the authority of Mad. Merian has really twenty by her account. But I fufpect very much that he has been deceived

as the fays that it produced a phalena. This would be an unexampled cafe, and two fingular to be credited on the authority of a perfon more intent on painting infects than in defcribing them exactly. There is every reason to believe that she had miftaken the chryfalis of a true caterpillar for that of the pfeudo-caterpillar in queftion; and I imagine that she made a fimilar mistake in Part II. No 3. of her European infects, where the fays, that a butterfly came from a caterpillar with twenty-four feet.

PAGE 45, 1. 32.

Beetle with a probofcis. This likewife would be a fingular fact in Natural History if it were true, I do not believe that any naturalist has ever seen a larva with four and twenty-feet producing a beetle, nor indeed does Mad. Merian, whom M. Leffer quotes here as his authority, fay that the animal in queftion had four and twenty feet. It is in the defcription of the third and not of the fecond plate of her fecond part that the fpeaks of an ochre-coloured larva found in rotten wood, which changes into a beetle. Some lines above the had spoken of a caterpillar with twenty-four feet. Thefe two defcriptions are printed clofe together in my Edition, and occupy only ten lines. The author has probably read the first four lines, where fhe fpeaks of the four and twenty feet of her pretended caterpillar, and then skipping two or three lines has read what the fays of the larva of the beetle. Without further confideration, he must have taken the pfeudo caterpillar and this larva for one and the fame ani inal; and has given to the larva the feet of the pfeudo-caterpillar without this explanation, it is impoffible to com prehend how he could quote the authority of Mad. Merian for bestowing four and twenty feet on a larva not mentioned by her.

PAGE 46, 1. 2.

One hundred and eighty four feet. This number of feet cannot but appear very confiderable to those who reflect on the multitude of fprings, which muft enter into the internal conftruction of fo mall an animal, in order to put fo many machines in motion. But after this with what afto- nifhment will we not be ftruck at the fight of an animal which has fifteen hundred and twenty feet, as one fpecies of fea ftars has. What do I fay? even two thousand one hun

dred,

dred, as a fpecies of Echinus has, according to M. de Reaumur. See Memoires de l'Academie Royale des Sciences, 1710, and 1712. Befides this prodigious number of feet, thefe Echini, according to the fame author, have thirteen hundred horns, fimilar to thofe of fails, which they can put out and draw in at pleasure, and from the extremities of which, they exprefs a kind of glue, by which they attach themselves to the bodies they want to fix on, that they may not be carried away by the agitation of the water of the fea.

PAGE 46, 1. 17.

Thofe that eat other infects. All flies whofe maggots cat infects, are not flies with two wings. The greater part have four which are called Ichneumon flies, and M. Leifer himfelf places them among the infects with four wings. Thefe infects have borrowed the name of Ichneunion from a certain amphibious rat of Egypt fo called. This rat dèftroys the egg of the crocodile, and it is faid it can find its way into the belly of that animal to prey upon its liver.

PAGE 46, 1. 20.

*The Ricinus volans. This is the Hippobofca equina of Linnaeus.

PAGE 47, 1. 4.

A powder firewed over them. This powder feen in the microfcope confifts of flat laminæ or plates of a regular figure. Their anterior edge is generally indented like the teeth of a faw, and their pofterior extremity terminates in a point. They have likewife pretty often different fides. Some of these plates likewife are channelled; I know fome that have fixty furrows. This powder or rather these plates are not scattered at random on the wings of lepidopterous infects; they are there ranged with a great deal of art, and laid over one another like tiles on a houfe. Each plate is inferted by its apex, into the membraneous and transparent part of the wing, and the affemblage of their different colours forms thofe beautiful fhades which we admire in them.

PAGE 47, 1. 5.

Have four wings. It is fo general a rule that all lepi dopterous infects have four wings, that one would be inclined to believe it without any exception. But I have found a

caterpillar