The eggs of the earth-worm, the snail, and the beetle, will afford many subjects for the microscope, and will be found to deserve a very attentive examination. Swammerdam was accustomed to hatch them in a dish, covered with white paper, which he always kept in a moist state. To preserve these and similar eggs, they must be pierced with a fine needle; the contained liquors must be pressed out, after which they should be blown up by means of a small glass tube, and then filled with a little resin dissolved in oil of spike. The worm of the rhinoceros beetle, like other insects in the larva state, changes its skin; in order to effect which, it discharges all its excrement, and forms a convenient hole in the earth, in which it may perform the wonderful operation; for it does not, like the serpent, cast off merely an external covering, but the throat, a part of the stomach, and the inward surface of the great gut, change at the same time their skin: as if it were to increase the wonder, and to call forth our attention to these representative changes, some hundreds of pulmonary pipes cast also each its delicate skin, a transparent membrane is taken from the eyes, and the skull remains fixed to the exuvia. After the operation, the head and teeth are white and tender, though at other times as hard as bone; so that the larva, when provoked, will attempt to gnaw iron. For an accurate anatomical description of this worm, I must refer the reader to Swammerdam; he will find it, like the rest of this author’s works, well worthy of his attentive perusal. To dissect it, he first killed it in spirit of wine, or suffocated it in rain water rather more than lukewarm, not taking it out from thence for some hours. This preparation prevents an improper contraction of the muscular fibres.