nd in the end of Summer becometh
hard and woody._ Whether this be the very same kind, I cannot affirm, but
both the Picture and Description come very neer to that I have, but that he
seems not to take notice of the hollowness or Worm, for which 'tis most
observable. And therefore 'tis very likely, if men did but take notice,
they might find very many differing Species of these Nuts, _Ovaries_, or
_Matrixes_, and all of them to have much the same designation and office.
And I have very lately found several kinds of Excrescencies on Trees and
Shrubs, which having endured the Winter, upon opening them, I found most of
them to contain little Worms, but dead, those things that contain'd them
being wither'd and dry.
* * * * *
Observ. XLIV. _Of the tufted or Brush-horn'd _Gnat_._
This little creature was one of those multitudes that fill our _English_
air all the time that warm weather lasts, and is exactly of the shape of
that I observ'd to be generated and hatch'd out of those little Insects
that wriggle up and down in Rain-water. But, though many were of this form,
yet I observ'd others to be of quite other kinds; nor were all of this or
the other kind generated out of Water Insects; for whereas I observ'd that
those that proceeded from those Insects were at their full growth, I have
also found multitudes of the same shape, but much smaller and tenderer
seeming to be very young ones, creep up and down upon the leaves of Trees,
and flying up and down in small clusters, in places very remote from water;
and this Spring, I observ'd one day, when the Wind was very calm, and the
afternoon very fair, and pretty warm, though it had for a long time been
very cold weather, and the wind continued still in the East, several small
swarms of them playing to and fro in little clouds in the Sun, each of
which were not a tenth part of the bigness of one of these I here have
delineated, though very much of the same shape, which makes me ghess, that
each of these swarms might be the of-spring of one onely Gnat, which had
been hoorded up in some safe repository all this Winter by some provident
Parent, and were now, by the warmth of the Spring-air, hatch'd into little
Flies.
And indeed, so various, and seemingly irregular are the generations or
productions of Insects, that he that shall carefully and diligently observe
the several methods of Nature therein, will have infinitely cause further
to admire t
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