This, methinks, if it be so, does in the next place hint a Quaery, which may perhaps deserve a little further examination:  And that is, Whether there be not many of those minute Creatures, such as Mites, and the like, which, though they are commonly thought of otherwise, are only the pully, or young ones, of much bigger Insects, and not the generating, or parent Insect, that has layd those Eggs; for having many times observ’d those Eggs, which usually are found in great abundance where Mites are found, it seems something strange, that so small an Animal should have an Egg so big in proportion to its body.  Though on the other side, I must confess, that having kept divers of those Mites inclosed in a box for a good while, I did not find them very much augmented beyond their usual bigness.

What the husk and cobweb of this little white substance should be, I cannot imagine, unless it be, that the old one, when impregnated with Eggs, should there stay, and fix it self on the Vine, and dye, and all the body by degrees should rot, save only the husk, and the Eggs in the body:  And the heat, or fire, as it were, of the approaching Sun-beams should vivifie those Relicts of the corrupted Parent, and out of the ashes, as ’twere, (as it is fabled of the Phoenix) should raise a new offspring for the perpetuation of the Species.  Nor will the cobweb, as it were, in which these Eggs are inclos’d, make much against this Conjecture; for we may, by those cobwebs that are carried up and down the Air after a Fog (which with my Microscope I have discovered to be made up of an infinite company of small filaments or threads) learn, that such a texture of body may be otherwise made then by the spinning of a Worm.

* * * * *

Observ.  LVII. Of the Eels_ in Vinegar._

Of these small Eels, which are to be found in divers sorts of Vinegar, I have little to add besides their Picture, which you may find drawn in the third Figure of the 25. Scheme:  That is, they were shaped much like an Eel, save only that their nose A, (which was a little more opacous then the rest of their body) was a little sharper, and longer, in proportion to their body, and the wrigling motion of their body seem’d to be onely upwards and downwards, whereas that of Eels is onely side wayes:  They seem’d to have a more opacous part about B, which might, perhaps, be their Gills; it seeming always the same proportionate distant from their nose, from which, to the tip of their tail, C, their body seem’d to taper.

Taking several of these out of their Pond of Vinegar, by the net of a small piece of filtring Paper, and laying them on a black smooth Glass plate, I found that they could wriggle and winde their body, as much almost as a Snake, which made me doubt, whether they were a kind of Eal or Leech.

I shall add no other observations made on this minute Animal, being prevented herein by many excellent ones already publish’d by the ingenious, Doctor Power, among his Microscopical Observations, save onely that a quantity of Vinegar repleat with them being included in a small Viol, and stop’d very close from the ambient air, all the included Worms in a very short time died, as if they had been stifled.