except in confequence of extreme cold. A moderate froft does not prevent them from moving, when they are touched; their heart or great artery, ftill continues to beat; but it beats much more flowly than in fummer. It is therefore to be prefumed, that they likewife breathe in winter, but at longer intervals than in other feafons. All infects, however, do not pass the winter in fuch repofe; there are fome, for which that feafon is a feafon of activity. I know many which move, eat, and grow, at that time, and do not undergo their changes till the fpring. Infects of this kind, it is obvious, must refpire in winter, that being their proper feafon.

PAGE 57, 1. 14.

Couple with the females. See on this bead, p. 299, in the Imarks on the words, They multiply by generation.

PAGE 57, 1. 26.

*The most common figures. The eggs of fpiders, and many butterflies, are round. Thefe eggs, though round, are however, diftinguished by a variety of appearance. They are not all fmooth, but fome of them carved in many different ways, as may be seen in those of many phálænæ. The eggs of many beetles are oval, and thofe of the Chryfomela alparagi are of a conical form.

PAGE 58, I. 8.

*The matter of these eggs. The greater part of infects are oviparous. I fay the greater part, because fome species are viviparous, fuch as the aphides.-Author. The aphides, or at leaft many fpecies of them, are both oviparous and viviparous. An aphis, that, during fummer, has brought forth live young, lays eggs at the approach of winter, and thefe eggs are not hatched, till the following fpring. Lycnet.

PAGE 59, 1. 3.

*A great number of eggs. There are fome infects, however, which lay but few eggs: the dor-beetle (Scarabæus ftercorarius) lays but one: the Caffida nebulofa, only fix or feven. Frifch.

The author's affertions in this note are not accurate. He refers to Frisch as his authority, who fays only, that the Scarabæus lays but one egg in one hole; and that the eggs

of

of the Caffida, which he found on the under fide of the leaf of an Atriplex, were in patches of fix or feven together.

Some hundreds.

PAGE 59, 1. 4.

And even fome thoufands; as for ex

ample, the mother or queen bee.

PAGE 60, 1. 3.

Which afterwards becomes the inf. If we believe Swammerdam, this obfcure point is by no means the infect itself, but only its head, which firft acquires its confiftence and

colour.

PAGE 60, 1. 7.

As in a matrix. Would it not be more natural, to com pare this pellicle to the chorion and amnion, which enclose the foetus, than to a matrix?

PAGE 60, 1. 15.

Till having become larger. Swammerdam likewife maintains, that the infect does not increase in the egg; but, that its parts are there merely formed, and acquire confiftence.

PAGE 60, 1. 18.

The little care. It is true, that most infects feem to be no otherwise concerned for their eggs, than to depofite them in places, where the young when hatched, may find a fufficient quantity of the food that is proper for them. And this, indeed, is all the care that is neceffary for thefe eggs, or which, for the most part, the mothers can take of them, as many female infects die immediately, after having excluded their eggs. This care, however, does not always ftop there; for it is often accompanied with other precautions. Many enclose their eggs in a very clofe filken web, others cover them with a coat of hairs, torn from their own bodies. Some species glue them together, with a mafs of vifcid liquor, which hardening in the air, fecures them from injuries. Some make oblique incifions in a leaf, and hide an egg in each of thefe incifions. We find fome placing their eggs within the bark of trees, and in places where they are entirely protect ed from the rain, from wind, and from the too great heat of the fun. Some have the art of opening the nerves of leaves, and there laying their eggs, in fuch a manner, that

an excrefcence is formed round them, which ferves at once for a shelter, and for food to the young infect. Some en velope their eggs with a foft fubftance, which forms the first aliment of the young, before they are able to use more fo lid food, and to procure it. Laftly, others make a hole in the earth, and after having carried thither a fufficient quantity of proper food, depofite their eggs. But, if a great number of infects, after having thus laid their eggs in convenient places, and ufed the precautions I have mentioned, abandon them to Providence, there are fome that never leave them at all. Such, for example, are fome fpecies of fpiders, that never move a step, without carrying along with them, in a kind of bag, all the eggs they have produced. Their attachment to thefe eggs is fo great, that they expose themselves to the greatest dangers, rather than quit them. Such, likewife, are bees, wafps, hornets, and many other forts of fimilar infects. It is well known, with what art they conftruct the cells for their eggs, and with what care they feed their young, till the time when they are ready to change into nymphs: these are facts known to every body, and on which it would be fuperfluous to enlarge. The care which ants take of their young, is carried still further. They are not contented with depofiting their eggs in places prepared for them on purpose, and of feeding their young, til the time when they are to pafs into the nymph state; even then they continue to take most wonderful care of them. With what labour do they not tranfport them in fine weather, from the bottom of their abode to the furface of the ground, that they may receive the benign influence of the fun! With what attention do they not carry them back to the bottom of their dwellings, when that luminary retires, or when the air begins to grow cold! What diftrefs do they not teftify, when an accident hath diflurbed their neft, and feattered the nymphs! No danger can frighten them from the places where thefe nymphs are thrown. They feek them every where with anxiety, and every one is employed in collecting thofe which are found, and placing them under fome cover till their first abode is repaired, whither they are immediately tranfported. Thefe different inftances are fufficient, I imagine, to fhew, that all infects do not abandon their eggs to chance; that there are fome, which take as great, if not greater care of their young, than many of the larger animals, and that even thofe that do a

banden

bandon their eggs, never do fo, till after having fufficiently provided for their prefervation, and for the fuftenance of the young to be excluded from them. This, indeed, the author does not pretend to deny, as appears from the 13th chapter, which treats of the parental care which infects have of their eggs and young.

PAGE 60, 1. left.

Without the affiflance of their parents. It would be a fingular circumstance, if Nature had devolved on infects, the care of hatching the eggs of fishes. This, however, is an opinion adopted by M. des Landes, with regard to the eggs of the fole, as appears by the Hiftory of the Royal Academy of Sciences for 1722, p. m. 27. It is generally believed, on the coafts of France and England, that foles are producedfrom a fpecies of fmall fea-crab, named chevrette or crevette. M. des Landes caufed a confiderable quantity of thefe to be fifhed up, and put them into a veffel of fea water. In twelve or thirteen days, he found in it eight or ten finall foles. He repeated the experiment often, and always with the fame fuccefs. He afterwards put the foles alone, into a veffel of fea water, and though they depofited their spawn, there appeared no young foles. He found be fides, that when the chevrettes were newly fifhed up, feveral fmall veficles were found among their feet, unequal in fize and number, and firmly glued to their breaft, by a vif cid liquor. Having examined thefe velicles with a microfcope, he there faw a fort of embrio, having the appearance. of a fole, whence he concludes, that the eggs of the fol, in order to be hatched, must attach themselves to the chevrette. I will not fay, that the conclufion of M. des Landes is altogether without foundation; but I think he might have rendered his experiment much more decifive, if, instead of the great quantity of chevrettes that he put into the veffel, and among which there might eafily have been mixed a few foles, without his perceiving them, he had contented himfelf with taking a few of the chevrettes loaded with the veficles he mentions, and putting them fingly into water. If he found, then, in the courfe of a few days, a small fole in the water, and at the fame time, a veficle lefs in those attached to that particular chevrette, it would have been a proof, that the fole was actually produced from that veficle: But would this have been a proof, that the affiftance of the chevrette

chevrette was indifpenfable to the exclufion of the fole from the egg? If the eggs of thofe that fpawned in the veffel remained fterile, while the others produced young, the reafon of the difference might have been, either that the males had not fertilised the spawn of the former, and that they had rendered fertile that containing the eggs attached to the chevrette; or perhaps, that thefe eggs, needing a degree of agitation to make them hatch, the first had not in the veffel, the neceffary agitation which they would have received in the fea, while the chevrettes, by their motions, would have procured a fufficient agitation to the others.

PAGE 61.1 31.

This is fo rapid. I fhould think it ufelefs to obferve, that the proverb here mentioned, exceedingly exaggerates the matter, if I did not know, that many people believe it literally true. It is, however, true, that of infects which are not remarkably minute, the generation of fleas, aphides, and other vermin of that fort, goes on with the greatest rapidity. As to larger infects, a whole year is neceffary for their paffing from one generation to another. The fpecies which multiply twice a year, are in mush fmaller numbers, as are those which need more than a year to produce their like.

PAGE 62, 1. 2.

It is allowed, that infects, &c. This is not an universal opinion. The fureft way is, not to decide on a subject we cannot know. When we take a general view of the opera tions of infects, the great uniformity, which at once appears in the economy of each fpecies, would make us believe, that they act merely by instinct. But, when we examine their proceedings in detail, and when we fee, that they not only vary their operations, according to the neceflity of the cafe but that, when they are placed in difficult circumftances, in which, according to the ordinary courfe of things, they fhould not naturally find themselves, we obferve, they do not fail to make the most of their refources, and that they can, with much industry, remedy accidents, and extricate themselves from very embarraffing fituations, we are then tempted to allow them a portion of reafon.

PAGE