rystalline glass whilst it is
kept glowing hot in the blown flame of a Lamp, for, by that means, that
purely transparent body will be so divided into an infinite number of
plates, or small strings, with interpos'd aerial plates and _fibres_, that
from the multiplicity of the reflections from each of those internal
surfaces, it may be drawn out into curious Pearl-like or Silver wire, which
though small, will yet be opacous; the same thing I have done with a
composition of red _Colophon_ and _Turpentine_, and a little Bee's Wax, and
may be done likewise with Birdlime, and such like glutinous and transparent
bodies: But to return to our description.
The small blunt head of this Insect was furnish'd on either side of it with
a cluster of eyes, each of which seem'd to contain but a very few, in
comparison of what I had observ'd the clusters of other Insects to abound
with; each of these clusters were beset with a row of small brisles, much
like the _cilia_ or hairs on the eye-lids, and, perhaps, they serv'd for
the same purpose. It had two long horns before, which were streight, and
tapering towards the top, curiously ring'd or knobb'd, and brisled much
like the Marsh Weed, call'd Horse-tail, or Cats-tail, having at each knot a
fring'd Girdle, as I may so call it, of smaller hairs, and several bigger
and larger brisles, here and there dispers'd among them: besides these, it
had two shorter horns, or feelers, which were knotted and fring'd, just as
the former, but wanted brisles, and were blunt at the ends; the hinder part
of the creature was terminated with three tails, in every particular
resembling the two longer horns that grew out of the head: The leggs of it
were scal'd and hair'd much like the rest, but are not express'd in this
_Figure_, the Moth being intangled all in Glew, and so the leggs of this
appear'd not through the Glass which looked perpendicularly upon the back.
This Animal probably feeds upon the Paper and covers of Books, and
perforates in them several small round holes, finding, perhaps, a
convenient nourishment in those hulks of Hemp and Flax, which have pass'd
through so many scourings, washings, dressings and dryings, as the parts of
old Paper must necessarily have suffer'd; the digestive faculty, it seems,
of these little creatures being able yet further to work upon those
stubborn parts, and reduce them into another form.
And indeed, when I consider what a heap of Saw-dust or chips this little
c
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