PAGE 86, 1. 18.

Whom their cruel country had expelled. The inftance here adduced by the author is ftriking, because it is later than fome others, and has happened in our days. But if we go back to the last century, and reflect on the vast multitudes of Proteftants who were banished from France their native country; who were at first destitute of every thing, but who foon found a retreat in Germany, in England, in the United Provinces and in Switzerland, we fhall be convinced that Providence did not abandon them any more than the people of Salzburg. The greater part of the French found themselves in a fhort time in a fituation infinitely more agreeable than that which they had left. This fact is so true, that numbers would have refused to quit their new establishment, though they had been permitted to return to their native country. Thus God accomplished in them the promise he made to those who fhould leave father, mother, wife, children, &c. for his fake. He repaid them an hundred fold. Note of the French Translator. PAGE 87, 1. 11.

A fort of moving houfe. If there be animals, which after having got entrance into our bodies with our food, increase there and multiply, it is probable that their number cannot be great, confidering that an animal brought to life in a temperate air, and accustomed to a certain kind of food, appears little fit to endure the heat of our stomach, the corrofion of the folvent humours which enter it, the humidity and moisture with which it is filled, the trituration and great diverfity of the alimeuts which are there digested. All this feems likely to caufe its death in a few inftants; accordingly it is with difficulty I can believe that the worms which are fo often found in our inteftines have been introduced with our food; although it is very difficult to fay how they have got admittance otherwife, and tho' all that has been advanced on the fubject hitherto is nothing but conjecture, and that too fufficiently improbable.

PAGE 87, 1. 29.

Ready to devour our bodies. The worms which commonly attack our dead bodies are not the fame which inhabit them when living. The origin of these laft is unknown to us; but we know that the firft are produced from flies which

lay

1

lay their eggs on flesh, and other fubftances about to grow putrid. Before the corruption of thofe fubftances they are not proper food for the larvae of thefe flies, and accordingly they never depofit their eggs on living bedies: and it is fufficient to prevent a dead body from being eaten by worms, to defend it from flies. As to the worms which are found in our bodies while alive, it is probable that they die with us, and that our bodies when become cold and corrupted, are incapable of preferving the life of animals accustomed to a great degree of heat and to fresh food. What confirms this idea, is, that we fee lice and other vermin which prey upon living bodies, abandon them when dead, and even when attacked by difeafe.

PAGE 88, 1. 15.

The motion of fnails is very slow. The mechanifin of their progreffive motion is more curious than is generally imagined, at leaft if it refembles that of the large fpotted fnails which I have examined. When they are made to move in a glass, we see their under surface divided into three bands, which run from the head to the tail; the middle one alone feems to act; all the motion at that time obfervable in the other two is only that by which they apply themselves immediately to the bodies they pafs over. The action of the middle band confifts in a very obvious undulating motion, very regular and rapid, proceeding from the tail to the head, the undulations fucceeding one another at equal diftances, and fo near, that twenty of them may be counted between the head and the extremity. The body of the as nimal obeys but little the rapid motion of these undulations. It appeared to me, that during the time occupied by an undulation, in running the whole length, the animal itself proceeded only the space between one undulation and ancther. Its progreffive motion is therefore twenty times flower than the undulatory motion, and it may be faid that to advance one step, it must make twenty. Who could imagine that this animal runs fo faft, when it proceeds fo flowly!

PAGE 89, 1. 11.

The blind mole. Moles are by no means blind, but their eyes are not formed to bear the light of broad day. They are very fmall, and deep feated; they must be fought for to be feen. It was neceffary that they fhould be thus hidden to

defend

defend them from the falling in of the earth, in which this animal is continually digging. It is this wife precaution in nature, which makes people believe that moles are blind; they would become blind if they had lefs the appearance of being fo.

PAGE 90, 1. 14.

To prevent their falling to the bottom. Aquatic infects are not confined to a fingle mode of progreflive motion. Many walk, fwim, and fly, others walk and fwim, and others poffefs only one of thofe means of motion. Of those which fwim, the greater part fwim on the belly, and fame on the back. Tofwim the more quickly, fome have the power of filling themselves with water, and of ejecting it again forcibly by the pofterior extremity; this pufhes them forward with an effect fimilarto that which pushes back the Eolipile, or makes a roc❤ ket afcend. In this way the larvæ ofthe Libellula Puella fwims. Others have the hind legs long, and made like oars which they ufe in the fame way. Of thofe which walk, fome go on the belly, others on the fides, and others on the head and the tail. Infects of this latt fort have no feet, they have a fort of limb at each extremity of the body which ferves them for feet, and by which they can attach themfelves with inconceivable force to the bodies they want to hold by. Some fpecies of this kind have the power of elongation and contraction, in a degree. which exceeds imagination, and this makes them take huge ftrides. Many aquatic infects properly fpeaking neither walk nor fwim; but by a progreffive undulation of the under part of their body, they can produce the effect. There are even fome that without the fmalleft obfervable external motion glide through the water in every direction and with great velocity. Many of thefe are Proteufes which change as it were their form at pleafure, and take fuch odd fhapes that if one did not know them, one would never take them for animals.

PAGE 91, 1. 3.

Like a bow after the arrow is let fly. What facilitates this elaftic motion is their having hooks at their anterior part by which they connect themfelves with the pofterior part of their bodies. When they make an effort as if to restore themselves at the time that they are bent double,

thefe

thefe hooks at once loofe their hold, and cause those jerks by which the animal leaps from place to place.

PAGE 92, 1. 21.

Excepted from this general rule. In this example it is remarkable that the infect is a butterfly, and that butterflies in general have a very uneqnal mode of flight, much more fo than moths. Perhaps the reafon is that the four wings of the former are almoft inflexible, and quite extended; while the latter, at least the greater part of them, can fold their wings like a fan; which may help to direct their flight.

PAGE 92, 1. 24.

The flight of the male being most rapid. There are even among butterflies and beetles fome fpecies where the females do not fly at all, as has been already mentioned.

PAGE 96, 1. 2.

They all dread the rigour of winter. The Winter however is formidable but to few fpecies of infects. Besides that the greater part refift the moft intense cold, and that a fevere winter kills fewer than an open one, I have already faid in another place that there are many kinds for which the feafon of frost is the feafon of eating and growing: there are many caterpillars of this kind. I am fuprifed to find them mentioned by no author; probably because they have never thought of feeking for them in that fevere feafon. Winter infects grow much more flowly than those of the Summer. They do not eat when the froft is very intense, but they immediately begin to feed when it grows more moderate. It is generally towards fpring, that they transform themselves into nymphs or chryfalids.

PAGE 96, 1. 19.

Seen affembling in crowds. This relates only to certain fpecies aceuftomed to live in fociety. We do not find infects that live folitary, and which are certainly the most numerous, affembling together to pafs the winter.

PAGE 97, 1. 3.

* Dr Welfch mentions a beautiful jafper which on one fide had many deep and winding holes, visibly the work of

certain

Certain infects which had lived in them. Befides, a certain yellowish duft in them indicated that they could only have been the holes of worms; and Barchewitz fays that a fpecies of white ants in the Eaft Indies live on iron.

PAGE 63, 1. 13.

Sand, ftones, iron. These substances appear fo little fit to be food for infects, that one would need at least better proofs than those which the author has brought, to credit a fact of this nature.

When an infect works in the fand, a careless obferver might eafily be deceived, and imagine when he fees the animal taking fand in its mouth that it is for the purpose of eating it, though in reality it is only for conftructing its habitation.

A stone full of holes, or which appears to have been attacked by fome infect, is not a valid proof that that infect has ufed it as food. Some infects indeed build the cafes in which they live with fragments of stone and other hard substances. Is it not probable that if any infect had attacked the jasper which the author mentions in the above note, it must have been anly to conftruct its abode with the fragments, or to form a lodge for itself in the ftone? But it is not even probable that infects ever lodged in that jafper, except they had done fo before its compleat petrifaction. Nothing is more common than to find fishes, bones, shells and other animal fubftances in the heart of the hardest ftones. But it muft nog be inferred from this, that thofe fishes, or the animals to which those bones and fhells belonged, ever lived in the ftones, or were nourished by them. It is certain that they must have got into the ftones before their induration. If then the jafper in question had been formed around the infects, time would confume them, the holes they occupied would remain open, and their remains in the form of duft might be found in them.

As to iron, which Barchewitz pretends the white ants of the Eaft Indies live upon, the circumftance is fo incredible, that it would be judging charitably of that author to fuppofe he had been mistaken.

PAGE 98, 1. 18.

The feelopendra. The various larve which live in dunghills

A aa