Micrographia: Some Physiological Descriptions of Minute Bodies Made by Magnifying Glasses with Observations and Inquiries ThereuponHooke, Robert
History
Micrographia: Some Physiological Descriptions of Minute Bodies Made by Magnifying Glasses with Observations and Inquiries Thereupon
Hooke, Robert
Magnifying glasses -- Early works to 1800; Microscopy -- Early works to 1800; Natural history -- Pre-Linnean works
behind them, sticking on the Box in their _triagonal_ posture; these I
found with the _Microscope_ to have much such a substance as the Silk-worms
Eggs, but could not perceive them pitted. And indeed, there is as great a
variety in the shape of the Eggs of Oviparous Insects as among those of
Birds.
Of these Eggs, a large and lusty Fly will at one time lay neer four or five
hundred, so that the increase of these kind of Insects must needs be very
prodigious, were they not prey’d on by multitudes of Birds, and destroy’d
by Frosts and Rains; and hence ’tis those hotter Climates between the
_Tropicks_ are infested with such multitudes of Locusts, and such other
Vermine.
* * * * *
Observ. XLII. _Of a blue _Fly_._
This kind of Fly, whereof a _Microscopical_ Picture is delineated in the
first _Figure_ of the 26. _Scheme_, is a very beautifull creature, and has
many things about it very notable; divers of which I have already partly
describ’d, namely, the feet, wings, eyes, and head, in the preceding
Observations.
And though the head before describ’d be that of a grey _Drone-Fly_, yet for
the main it is very agreeable to this. The things wherein they differ most,
will be easily enough found by the following particulars:
First, the clusters of eyes of this Fly, are very much smaller then those
of the _Dron-Fly_, in proportion to the head.
And next, all the eyes of each cluster seem’d much of the same bigness one
with another, not differing as the other, but rang’d in the same
_triagonal_ order.
Thirdly, between these two clusters, there was a scaly prominent _front_ B,
which was arm’d and adorn’d with large tapering sharp black brisles, which
growing out in rows on either side, were so bent toward each other neer the
top, as to make a kind of arched arbour of Brisles, which almost cover’d
the former _front_.
Fourthly, at the end of this Arch, about the middle of the face, on a
prominent part C, grew two small oblong bodies, DD, which through a
_Microscope_ look’d not unlike the Pendants in Lillies, these seem’d to be
jointed on to two small parts at C, each of which seem’d again jointed into
the front.
Fifthly, out of the upper part and outsides of these horns (as I may call
them, from the Figure they are of, in the 24. _Scheme_, where they are
marked with FF) there grows a single feather, or brushy Brisle, EE,
somewhat of the same kind with the tufts of a Gnat, which I have before
described.
What the use of these kind of horned and tufted bodies should be, I cannot
well imagine, unless they serve for smelling or hearing, though how they
are adapted for either, it seems very difficult to describe: they are in
almost every several kind of Flies of so various a shape; though certainly
they are some very essential part of the head, and have some very notable
office assign’d them by Nature, since in all Insects they are to be found
in one or other form.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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