One of these Gnats I have suffer’d to pierce the skin of my hand, with its proboscis, and thence to draw out as much blood as to fill its belly as full as it could hold, making it appear very red and transparent; and this without any further pain, then whilst it was sinking in its proboscis, as it is also in the stinging of Fleas:  a good argument, that these creatures do not wound the skin, and suck the blood out of enmity and revenge, but for meer necessity, and to satisfy their hunger.  By what means this creature is able to suck, we shall shew in another place.

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Observ.  XLVI. Of the white featherwing’d Moth_ or Tinea Argentea._

This white long wing’d Moth, which is delineated in the 30. Scheme; afforded a lovely object both to the naked Eye, and through a Microscope:  to the Eye it appear’d a small Milk white Fly with four white Wings, the two formost somewhat longer then the two hindermost, and the two shorter about half an Inch long, each of which four Wings seem’d to consist of two small long Feathers, very curiously tufted, or haired on each side, with purely white, and exceedingly fine and small Haires, proportion’d to the stalks or stems, out of which they grew, much like the tufts of a long wing-feather of some Bird, and their stalks or stems were, like those, bended backwards and downwards, as may be plainly seen by the draughts of them in the Figure.

Observing one of these in my Microscope, I found, in the first place, that all the Body, Legs, Horns and the Stalks of the Wings, were covered over with various kinds of curious white Feathers, which did, with handling or touching, easily rubb off and fly about, in so much that looking on my Fingers, with which I had handled this Moth, and perceiving on them little white specks, I found by my Microscope, that they were several of the small Feathers of this little creature, that stuck up and down in the rugosities of my Skin.

Next, I found that underneath these Feathers, the pretty Insect was covered all over with a crusted Shell, like other of those Animals, but with one much thinner and tenderer.

Thirdly, I found, as in Birds also is notable, it had differing and appropriate kinds of Feathers, that covered several parts of its body.

Fourthly, surveying the parts of its body, with a more accurate and better Magnifying Microscope, I found that the tufts or haires of its Wings were nothing else but a congeries, or thick set cluster of small vimina or twiggs, resembling a small twigg of Birch, stript or whitned, with which Brushes are usually made, to beat out or brush off the dust from Cloth and Hangings.  Every one of the twiggs or branches that composed the Brush of the Feathers, appeared in this bigger Magnifying Glass (of which EF which represents 1/24 part of an Inch, is the scale, as G is of the lesser, which is only 1/3) like the