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
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 whitened, 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 ⅓) like the figure D. The Feathers also that covered a part of
his Body, and were interspersed among the brush of his Wings, I found, in
the bigger Magnifying Glass, of the shape A, consisting of a stalk or stem
in the middle, and a seeming tuftedness or brushy part on each side. The
Feathers that cover’d most part of his Body and the stalk of his wings,
were, in the same _Microscope_, much of the figure B, appearing of the
shape of a small Feather, and seemed tufted: those which covered the Horns
and small parts of the Leggs, through the same _Microscope_, appear’d of
the shape C. Whether the tufts of any or all of these small Feathers,
consisted of such component particles as the Feathers of Birds, I much
doubt, because I find that Nature does not alwaies keep, or operate after
the same method, in smaller and bigger creatures. And of this, we have
particular Instances in the Wings of several creatures. For whereas, in
Birds of all kinds, it composes each of the Feathers of which its Wing
consists, of such an exceeding curious and most admirable and stupendious
texture, as I else-where shew, in the Observations on a Feather; we find it
to alter its method quite, in the fabrick of the Wings of these minute
creatures, composing some of thin extended membranes or skins, such as the
Wings of Dragon-flys; in others, those skins are all over-grown, or pretty
thick bestuck, with short brisles, as in Flesh-flies; in others, those
filmes are covered, both on the upper and under side, with small Feathers,
plac’d almost like the tyles on a House, and are curiously rang’d and
adorn’d with most lively colours, as is observable in Butter-flies, and
several kinds of Moths; In others, instead of their films, Nature has
provided nothing, but a matter of half a score stalks (if I well remember
the number; for I have not lately met with any of these flys, and did not,
when I first observ’d them, take sufficient notice of divers particulars)
and each of these stalks, with a few single branchings on each side,
resembling much the branched back-bone of a Herring or the like Fish, or a
thin hair’d Peacocks feather, the top or the eye being broken off. With a
few of these on either side (which it was able to shut up or expand at
pleasure, much like a Fann, or rather like the posture of the feathers in a
wing, which ly all one under another, when shut, and by the side of each
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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