determination of Aristotle, who as in sundry other places, so more expressly in his book of respiration, affirmeth this sound to be made by the illision of an inward spirit upon a pellicle or little membrane about the precinct or pectoral division of their body. If we also consider that a bee or fly, so it be able to move the body, will buzz, though its head be off; that it will do the like if deprived of wings,3 reserving the head, whereby the body may be the better moved; and that some also which are big and lively will hum without either head or wing.

Nor is it only the beating upon this little membrane by the inward and connatural spirit, as Aristotle determines, or the outward air, as Scaliger conceiveth, which affordeth this humming noise, but most of the other parts may also concur hereto as will be manifest, if while they hum we lay our finger on the back or other parts, for thereupon will be felt a serrous or jarring motion, like that which happeneth while we blow on the teeth of a comb through paper; and so, if the head or other parts of the trunk be touched with oil, the sound will be much impaired, if not destroyed; for those being also dry and membranous parts, by attrition of the spirit do help to advance the noise. And therefore also the sound is strongest in dry weather, and very weak in rainy seasons, and towards winter; for then the air is moist, and the inward spirit growing weak, makes a languid and dumb allision upon the parts.

11. There is found in the summer a kind of spider called a tainct, of a red colour, and so little of body that ten of the largest will hardly outweigh a grain; this by country people is accounted a deadly poison unto cows and horses; who, if they suddenly die, and swell thereon, ascribe their death. hereto, and will commonly say, they have licked a tainct. Now to satisfy the doubts of men, we have called this tradition unto experiment; we have given hereof unto dogs, chickens, calves, and horses, and not in the singular number yet never could find the least disturbance ensue. There must be therefore other causes enquired of the sudden death

;

3 that it will do the like, &c.] This is not accurate. Dr. Geer tried it and found the sound continued, when the stumps of the wings remained, whose vibration occasioned the sound: but it ceased when he perfected the experiment by entirely removing the wings.

and swelling of cattle; and perhaps this insect is mistaken, and unjustly accused for some other. For some there are which from elder times have been observed pernicious unto cattle, as the buprestis, or burstcow, the pityocampe or eruca pinuum, by Dioscorides, Galen, and Ætius, the staphilinus described by Aristotle and others, or those red phalangious spiders like cantharides, mentioned by Muffetus. Now, although the animal may be mistaken, and the opinion also false, yet in the ground and reason which makes men most to doubt the verity hereof, there may be truth enough, that is, the inconsiderable quantity of this insect. For that a poison cannot destroy in so small a bulk, we have no reason to affirm. For if, as Leo Africanus reporteth, the tenth part of a grain of the poison of nubia* will dispatch a man in two hours; if the bite of a viper and sting of a scorpion is not conceived to impart so much; if the bite of an asp will kill within an hour, yet the impression scarce visible, and the poison communicated not ponderable; we cannot as impossible reject this way of destruction, or deny the power of death in so narrow a circumscription.

12. Wondrous things are promised from the glow-worm;4 from thence perpetual lights are pretended, and waters said to be distilled which afford a lustre in the night; and this is asserted by Cardan, Albertus, Gaudentinus, Mizaldus, and many more. But hereto we cannot with reason assent; for the light made by this animal depends much upon its life. For when they are dead they shine not, nor always while they live; but are obscure or light, according to the protrusion of their luminous parts, as observation will instruct us. For this flammeous light is not over all the body, but only visible on the inward side, in a small white part near the tail. When this is full and seemeth protruded, there ariseth a flame of a circular figure and emerald green colour; which is discernible in any dark place in the day; but when it falleth and seemeth contracted, the light disappeareth, and the colour of

*Granum Nubiæ.

glow-worm.] There is a glow-fly as well as a glow-worm. One of them flew about my face as I sate in my chamber at Bletchington, Oxon. Junio ineunte, 1650. See the particular narration in my notes on the Lorde Verulam's Naturall Historye, p. 180.-Wr.

The male glow-worm is winged.

the part only remaineth. Now this light, as it appeareth and disappeareth in their life, so doth it go quite out at their death; as we have observed in some, which preserved in fresh grass have lived and shined eighteen days: but as they declined, and the luminous humour dried, their light grew languid, and at last went out with their lives. Thus also the torpedo, which, alive, hath a power to stupify at a distance, hath none upon contraction being dead, as Galen and Rondeletius particularly experimented. And this hath also disappointed the mischief of those intentions, which study the advancement of poisons; and fancy destructive compositions from asp's or viper's teeth, from scorpion's or hornet's stings." For these amit their efficacy in the death of the individual,

5 And this hath also disappointed, &c.] The sting being secured from the bodye of a waspe as itt hung on the finger, turnd itt selfe and rann (up to the roots) into the finger, and caused a very dolorous and greate impostume. And one was bit by the head of a snake, after 6 hours' amputation whereof hee was never totally cured to his death: me teste oculato. Whether there may be destructive compositions made of those parts is uncertain: thus far itt is improbable; bycause the teeth of vipers and stings of scorpions are but the outward instrumentall partes through which the poysonous spirit of those venemous creatures is ejaculated by them while they live: but being dead, there is no such active quality in those parts more then anye other, and that the poyson consistes in the vital spirits is manifest, for that wee see the vipers drownd in a sack butt, infuse their spirit into the wine, making itt become an excellent antedote: the great quantitye of wine overcoming the small quantitye of the poyson which comes from them. The like may bee sayde of the vertue which together with the spirits of the scorpion, drownd in oyle, is imprinted on the oyle, makinge itt the only cure of the scorpion's stinge: whereof the reason is manifest. Oyle by nature, abates, and duls, and retundes the fiercenes and spreadinge of poyson injected into us by venemous creatures, where we may come to apply itt: but being dull of itt selfe, and not able to follow the swift spreading of the scorpions poyson, thro soe small a puncture, as soone as itt is felt, followes the poyson injected by the same waye; and soe making way for the oyle, wherein itt is caryed, caryes the balme that kils and deades the killing poyson before itt can seise on our vitall spirits to destroy them. And noe doubt but the oyle, wherein hornets are drowned, would cure their punctures alsoe; a thing worthe the tryall.-Wr.

It is not the case that the poison of serpents is only fatal when infused by the living reptile.—As is proved by the well-known fact that several individuals successively met their death by wearing a boot into the inside of which it was afterwards found the fang of a rattlesnake had stuck fast, so as to wound the leg when drawn on.

and act but dependently on their forms. And thus far also those philosophers concur with us, which held the sun and stars were living creatures, for they conceived their lustre depended on their lives, but if they ever died, their light must also perish.

It were a notable piece of art to translate the light from the Bononian stone into another body; he that would attempt to make a shining water from glow-worms, must make trial when the splendent part is fresh and turgid. For even from the great American glow-worms, and flaming flies, the light declineth as the luminous humour drieth.6

Now whether the light of animals, which do not occasionally shine from contingent causes, be not of kin unto the light of heaven; whether the invisible flame of life received in a convenient matter, may not become visible, and the diffused æthereal light make little stars by conglobation in idoneous parts of the compositum; whether also it may not have some original in the seed and spirit analogous unto the element of stars, whereof some glimpse is observable on the little refulgent humour, at the first attempts of formation; philosophy may yet enquire.7

True it is, that a glow-worm will afford a faint light, almost a day's space, when many will conceive it dead; but this is a mistake in the compute of death, and term of disanimation; for indeed, it is not then dead, but if it be distended will slowly contract itself again, which when it cannot do, it ceaseth to shine any more. And to speak strictly, it is no easy matter to determine the point of death in insects and creatures who have not their vitalities radically confined unto one part; for they are not dead when they cease to move or afford the visible evidences of life; as may be observed in flies, who when they appear even desperate and quite forsaken of their forms, by virtue of the sun or warm ashes will be revoked unto life, and perform its functions again.

Now whether this lustre, awhile remaining after death, dependeth not still upon the first impression, and light communicated or raised from an inward spirit, subsisting awhile in a moist and apt recipient, nor long continuing in this, or

6 It were a notable piece, &c.] This paragraph was first added in 6th edition.

7 Now whether, &c.] This paragraph was first added in 3rd edition.

the more remarkable Indian glow-worm; or whether it be of another nature, and proceedeth from different causes of illumination; yet since it confessedly subsisteth so little a while after their lives, how to make perpetual lights, and sublunary moons thereof as is pretended, we rationally doubt, though not so sharply deny, with Scaliger and Muffetus.8

13. The wisdom of the pismire is magnified by all, and in the panegyricks of their providence we always meet with. this. That to prevent the growth of corn which they store up, they bite off the end thereof;9 and some have conceived that from hence they have their name in Hebrew;* from *Namalh à Namal circumcidit.

Now whether this lustre, &c.] This paragraph was first added in 3rd edition.

9 they bite off the end, &c.] A more satisfactory and interesting solution of this question cannot be given, than is contained in the following quotation from one of the most interesting works on natural history in our language. "When we find the writers of all nations and ages unite in affirming, that, having deprived it of the power of vegetating, ants store up grain in their nests, we feel disposed to give larger credit to an assertion, which at first sight seems to savour more of fact than of fable, and does not attribute more sagacity and foresight to these insects than in other instances they are found to possess. Writers in general, therefore, who have considered this subject, and some even of very late date, have taken it for granted that the ancients were correct in this notion. But when observers of nature began to examine the manners and economy of these creatures more narrowly, it was found, at least with respect to the European species of ants, that no such hoards of grain were made by them, and, in fact, that they had no magazines in their nests in which provisions of any kind were stored up. It was therefore surmised that the ancients, observing them carry about their pupa, which in shape, size, and colour, not a little resemble a grain of corn, and the ends of which they sometimes pull open to let out the inclosed insect, mistook the one for the other, and this action for depriving the grain of the corculum. Solomon's lesson to the sluggard has been generally adduced as a strong confirmation of the ancient opinion: it can, however, only relate to the species of a warm climate, the habits of which are probably different from those of a cold one ;-so that his words, as commonly interpreted, may be perfectly correct and consistent with nature, and yet be not at all applicable to the species that are indigenous to Europe. But I think, if Solomon's words are properly considered, it will be found that this interpretation has been fathered upon them, rather than fairly deduced from them. He does not affirm that the ant which he proposes to his sluggard as an example, laid up in her magazines stores of grain: Go to the ant, thou sluggard, consider her ways and be wise; which having neither captain, overseer, or ruler, prepares her bread in the summer, and gathers her food in the