great white clouds, that appear all the Summer time, may be of
the same substance.

* * * * *

Observ. XLIX. _Of an _Ant_ or _Pismire_._

This was a creature, more troublesom to be drawn, then any of the rest, for
I could not, for a good while, think of a way to make it suffer its body to
ly quiet in a natural posture; but whil'st it was alive, if its feet were
fetter'd in Wax or Glew, it would so twist and wind its body, that I could
not any wayes get a good view of it; and if I killed it, its body was so
little, that I did often spoile the shape of it, before I could throughly
view it: for this is the nature of these minute Bodies, that as soon,
almost, as ever their life is destroy'd, their parts immediately shrivel,
and lose their beauty; and so is it also with small Plants, as I instanced
before, in the description of Moss. And thence also is the reason of the
variations in the beards of wild Oats, and in those of Musk-grass seed,
that their bodies, being exceeding small, those small variations which are
made in the surfaces of all bodies, almost upon every change of Air,
especially if the body be porous, do here become sensible, where the whole
body is so small, that it is almost nothing but surface; for as in
vegetable substances, I see no great reason to think, that the moisture of
the Aire (that, sticking to a wreath'd beard, does make it untwist) should
evaporate, or exhale away, any faster then the moisture of other bodies,
but rather that the avolation from, or access of moisture to, the surfaces
of bodies being much the same, those bodies become most sensible of it,
which have the least proportion of body to their surface. So is it also
with Animal substances; the dead body of an Ant, or such little creature,
does almost instantly shrivel and dry, and your object shall be quite
another thing, before you can half delineate it, which proceeds not from
the extraordinary exhalation, but from the small proportion of body and
juices, to the usual drying of bodies in the Air, especially if warm. For
which inconvenience, where I could not otherwise remove it, I thought of
this expedient.

I took the creature, I had design'd to delineate, and put it into a drop of
very well rectified spirit of Wine, this I found would presently dispatch,
as it were, the Animal, and being taken out of it, and lay'd on a paper,
the spirit of Wine would immediately fly away, and leave the Animal dry,