t Creatures. It had two small black eyes
_aa_, and two small long joynted and brisled horns _bb_. The hinder part of
its body seem'd to consist of nine scales, and the last ended in a forked
tayl, much like that of a _Cutio_, or Wood louse, out of which grew two
long hairs; they ran to and fro very swiftly, and were much of the bigness
of a common Mite, but some of them less: The longest of them seem'd not the
hundredth part of an inch, and the Eggs usually not above half as much.
They seemed to have six legs, which were not visible in this I have here
delineated, by reason they were drawn under its body.

If these Minute creatures were _Wood-lice_ (as indeed from their own shape
and from the frame, the skin, or shell, that grows on them, one may with
great probability ghess) it affords us an Instance, whereof perhaps there
are not many like in Nature, and that is, of the prodigious increase of
these Creatures, after they are hatch'd and run about; for a common
Wood-louse, of about half an inch long, is no less then a hundred and
twenty five thousand times bigger then one of these, which though indeed it
seems very strange, yet I have observed the young ones of some Spiders have
almost kept the same proportion to their Dam.

This, methinks, if it be so, does in the next place hint a Quaery, which
may perhaps deserve a little further examination: And that is, Whether
there be not many of those minute Creatures, such as Mites, and the like,
which, though they are commonly thought of otherwise, are only the _pully_,
or young ones, of much bigger Insects, and not the generating, or parent
_Insect_, that has layd those Eggs; for having many times observ'd those
Eggs, which usually are found in great abundance where Mites are found, it
seems something strange, that so small an Animal should have an Egg so big
in proportion to its body. Though on the other side, I must confess, that
having kept divers of those Mites inclosed in a box for a good while, I did
not find them very much augmented beyond their usual bigness.

What the husk and cobweb of this little white substance should be, I cannot
imagine, unless it be, that the old one, when impregnated with Eggs, should
there stay, and fix it self on the Vine, and dye, and all the body by
degrees should rot, save only the husk, and the Eggs in the body: And the
heat, or fire, as it were, of the approaching Sun-beams should vivifie
those Relicts of the corrupted Parent, and out o