A battle in

cope be

tween a

louse a flea.

house and

ing and running, and each of them armed at the extremity with two terrible claws: the head was large, and the eyes very fmall and black its horns were fhort and jointed, and could be thruft forward with a fpring. Its fnout was pointed, and opened, contracted, and penetrated, in a wonderful manner.

65. The first that was brought on the a microf. ftage was the flea, and to fhew us what an active one he was, he fprung and bounced at a strange rate: the velocity of his motions in leaping, were astonishing; and fometimes, he would tumble over and over in a wanton way but the moment the loufe appeared, he ftood stock ftill, gathered himself up, and fixed his flashing eyes on his foe. The gallant loufe did with a frown for fome time behold him, and then crouching down, began very foftly to move towards him, when the flea gave a leap on his enemy, and with his dangerous tail and pinching mouth, began the battle with great fury: but the loufe foon made him quit his hold, by hurting him with his claws, and wounding him with his fharp fnout. This made the flea fkip to the other fide of the box, and they both kept at a distance for near a minute, looking with great indignation at each other, and offering feveral times to advance. The loufe did it at laft in a race, and then the flea flew at him, which produced a battle as terrible as

ever was fought by two wild beafts. Every part of their bodies were in most violent motion, and fometimes the flea was uppermost, but more frequently the loufe. They did bite, and thruft, and claw one another most furiously, and the confequence of the dreadful engagement was, that the flea expired, and the loufe remained victor in the box: but he was fo much wounded, that he could fcarce walk. This battle was to me a very furprizing thing, as each of them was magnified to the fize of two feet: But confidering what fpecs or atoms of animated matter they were, it was astonishing to reflexion to behold the amazing mechanism of these two minúte things, which appeared in their exertions during the fray. It was still more ftrange to fee the averfion thefe fmall creatures had to each other, the paffions that worked in their little breafts, and the judgement they fhewed in their endeavours to destroy one another. It is indeed a wonderful affair: nor was it the leaft part of my admiration to fee through the extraordinary tranf parencies of the loufe, the violent circulation of the blood in its heart. This was as plane to my eye, as red liquor forced by a pump in feveral experiments through circulating glafs pipes. As to the dead flea, it was opened, and by the camera obfcura or folar microscope, (which magnifies the picture of fuch

Z 2

Spiders in

double mi

fuch a body as a flea, to eight feet) (28) we faw the intestines diftinguished and arranged in a manner that cannot be enough admired. It was full of eggs, and in every egg were many half-formed young ones.

66. The water aranea, or great water spithe great der, was next put in, and made a wonderful croscope. appearance in his greatly magnified state. It is the largest of the fpider kind, except the native of Apulia, called the Tarantula, and

is

(28) Tho' the image of a flea may be magnified to eight feet, by removing farther off the white paper fcreen, on which the picture of the object is thrown very beautifully from the object pofited in a fingle pocket microscope that is faftened to a tube to the folar microscope; yet the image or picture is more diftinct and exact, when not enlarged to more than three feet, on the oppofite fide of the darkened room.-By the way, reader, the folar microscope is the moft entertaining of all the microfcopes, and by it, without any fkill in drawing, you may eafily make an exact picture of any animal or object you can put into the faftened pocket microscope. The object is fo intenfely illuminated by the fun beams collected by a convex lens, that are thrown on it by a looking-glafs, that its picture is moft perfectly and planely reprefented on the white fcreen: You may have a mite, or one of the imperceptible animals of rotten wood, fo truly and greatly magnified, as easily to sketch out the exact image of it, in all its wonderful parts, with a pencil or a pin: and in this amufing work, and in transferring the objects from the folar to the double reflecting microscope, the catoptric microscope, and the microscope for opake objects, how ufefully and delightfully might a young man of fortune employ many hours that are miferably fauntered away, or confumed in fenfelefs and illicit delights?

is furnished at the head with a hard black forceps, which resembles that of the Apulian araneus: the colour of its oval body is a blueish black, and has a transverse line and two spots hollowed in it: its eight legs are very long, the joints large, and the little bones of the feet have different articulations : it was armed with briftles like a boar, and had claws very black, not unlike an eagle : it had eight eyes, and fix of them were difpofed in form of a half moon on the forehead; the other two were on the crown of the head; one to the left, the other to the right: This difpofition affords light to the whole body, and as these eyes are well furnished with cryftalline humours, they are fharp-fighted beyond all creatures, and fo nimbly hunt down flies: the mouth was full of teeth, and they looked like short thick hairs.

In oppofition to this amphibious creature, which walks on the mud at the bottom of ftanding waters, as well as on the banks, the filvery-green bodied fpider was put into the box, which is one of the clafs that lives in the woods, where it fquats down on the branches of trees, and throws four of its legs forward, and four backward, extending them ftraight along the bough; but the great water aranea, with his terrible weapon, the black forceps, in a minute destroyed

A reflexion on the

nature as

it, and we took the dead body out, to put in its place the red and yellow fpider, which is a larger and ftronger kind: this made a battle for two minutes, and hurt his foe: but he could not ftand it longer: he expired at the victor's feet.

These things were a fine entertainment to works of me, as I had not before seen a solar, catoptric, feen in the or improved double-reflecting microscope. I microfcope. had now a nearer view of the fkilful works of the fupreme Artificer. With admiration I beheld the magnified objects — the wonderful arrangement of the intestines of a flea- the motion and ebullition of the blood of a loufe their forms the various the gnat, spiders, so astonishingly framed that elephant in fo fmall a miniature - the amazing form of the ant the astonishing claws and beautiful wings of a fly; the bones, nerves, arteries, veins, and moving blood in this very minute animal --- the wonderful bee, its claws, its colours, and diftinct rows of teeth, with which it fips the flowers, and carries the honey home in its ftomach, but brings the wax externally on its thighs -and a thousand other things which manifeft a Creator. In every object I viewed in the optical inftruments, my eyes beheld one wife Being and fupreme cause of all things. Every infect, herb, and fpire of grafs, declare eternal power and godhead. Not