barks of Trees, the outermost being more rough and spongie, and the thickest, the middlemost more close, hard, white, and thin, the innermost very thin, seeming almost like the skin within an Egg’s shell.  The two outermost had root in the branch or stick, but the innermost had no stem or process, but was onely a skin that cover’d the cavity of the Nut.  All the Nuts that had no holes eaten in them, I found to contain these Maggots, but all that had holes, I found empty, the Maggots, it seems, having eaten their way through, taken wings and flown away, as this following account (which I receiv’d in writing from the same person, as it was sent him by his Brother) manifests. In a moorish black Peaty mould, with some small veins of whitish yellow Sands, upon occasion of digging a hole two or three foot deep, at the head of a Pond or Pool, to set a Tree in, at that depth, were found, about the end of October 1663._ in those very veins of Sand, those Buttons or Nuts, sticking to a little loose stick, that is, not belonging to any live Tree, and some of them also free by themselves._

Four or five of which being then open’d, some were found to contain live Insects come to perfection, most like to flying Ants_, if not the same; in others, Insects, yet imperfect, having but the head and wings form’d, the rest remaining a soft white pulpy substance._

Now, as this furnishes us with one odd History more, very agreeable to what I before hinted, so I doubt not, but were men diligent observers, they might meet with multitudes of the same kind, both in the Earth and in the Water, and in the Air, on Trees, Plants, and other Vegetables, all places and things being, as it were, animarum plena.  And I have often, with wonder and pleasure, in the Spring and Summer-time, look’d close to, and diligently on, common Garden mould, and in a very small parcel of it, found such multitudes and diversities of little reptiles, some in husks, others onely creepers, many wing’d, and ready for the Air; divers husks or habitations left behind empty.  Now, if the Earth of our cold Climate be so fertile of animate bodies, what may we think of the fat Earth of hotter Climates?  Certainly, the Sun may there, by its activity, cause as great a parcel of Earth to fly on wings in the Air, as it does of Water in steams and vapours.  And what swarms must we suppose to be sent out of those plentifull inundations of water which are poured down by the sluces of Rain in such vast quantities?  So that we need not much wonder at those innumerable clouds of Locusts with which Africa, and other hot countries are so pestred, since in those places are found all the convenient causes of their production, namely, genitors, or Parents, concurrent receptacles or matrixes, and a sufficient degree of natural heat and moisture.