to be so sensible of the strangeness of the place they are in, that there they will not meddle with the red, but as if they were frightened, and concerned for nothing but self-preserv ation, run away.

Upon opening these banks, I observe first a white substance, which to the bare eye looks like the scatterings of fine white sugar or salt, but very soft and tender; and if you take a bit of it, as big, perhaps, as a mustard-seed, and lay it on the object-plate of a good microscope, you may, by opening it with the point of a needle, discern many pure white and clear appearances in distinct membranes, all figured like the lesser sort of birds' eggs, and as clear as a fish's bladder. This same substance I find in the ants themselves, which I take to be the true ants' eggs; it being obvious that wherever this is uncovered, they make it their business to carry it away in their mouths to secure it, and will, after you have scattered it, lay it on a heap again with what speed they can.

I observe they lie in multitudes upon this spawn; and after a little time, every one of these small adherents is turned into a little vermicle, as small as a mite, hardly discerned to stir; but after a few days more you may perceive a feeble motion of flexion and extension, and they begin to look yellowish and hairy, shaped very like a small maggot; and so keeping that shape grow almost as large as an ant, and have every one a black spot on them.

Then they get a film over them, whitish and of an oval shape, for which reason I suppose they are commonly called ants' eggs, which yet, properly speaking, they are not. These are the chrysalids.

I have, to prevent mistakes, opened many of these vulgarly called ants' eggs, I mean the lesser sort, (for there are some as big as a wheat-corn, others less than a rye-corn,) and in some I find only a maggot, to appearance just such as was described before: in others I find a maggot beginning to put on the shape of an ant about the head, with two little yellowish specks where the eyes are designed: in others a further progress, and furnished with every thing to complete the shape of an ant, but wholly transparent, the eyes only excepted, which are then as black as black bugles.

But when they have newly put on this shape, I could never discern the least motion in any part of the little creature, the reason of which may perhaps be the weakness of their fibres; for after a little more time, when they begin to be brownish, they have strength to stir all their parts.

At last I met with some of these reputed eggs, which

having carefully opened, I took out of several of them every way perfect and complete ants, which immediately crept about among the rest, no way differing from many other ants, but by a more feeble motion of their limbs. And this I took for a clear demonstration of what I wished to know, that the film covers the maggot only while she is transforming into an ant, and till fit to shift for herself.

The black speck that is at one end of every such reputed ant's egg, I suppose to be cast out of the maggot in her transformation; since after it puts on the shape of an ant the speck is quite gone, and the whole body of the ant clear; since also this speck at the end of the said egg lies "always close to the anus of the inclosed ant.

As to their care for their young, (by which I mean all the sorts and degrees aforesaid, from the spawn to the vulgarly called eggs, in every one of which you will find a young ant,) it is observable, how upon the breaking up of their banks they make it their business immediately to carry their young out of sight again, laying the several sorts of them in several places and heaps; which if you mingle again or scatter, you shall, laying but some bits of slate or the like in any place they may come to and get under, after a few hours see all the vermicles and vulgarly called eggs laid in their several and distinct parcels under such pieces of slate, &c., provided the place be not so cold as to chill their limbs; which if it be, by being brought to the fire they will soon recover their strength, and fall to their business again of securing their little ones.

I have observed in summer, that in the morning they bring up those of their young (which are vulgarly called ants' eggs) towards the top of the bank; so that you may from ten in the morning until five or six in the afternoon find them near the top; especially about one, two, or three o'clock and later, if the weather be hot, when for the most part they are found on the south side of the bank, so that towards seven or eight at night, if it be cool or likely to rain, you may dig a foot deep before you can find them.

They know all the sorts of their young so well, that you cannot deceive them; though you may with fine sugar, salt, or the crums of very white stale bread scattered in the mould where their first true eggs are (as I call them) be mistaken yourself, yet the ants will not, nor touch a bit of what is not their own offspring.

Experiments concerning the Relation between Air and Light in shining Wood and Fish. By Mr. BOYLE.-[1668.]

ON putting a piece of shining rotten wood into the receiver of an air-pump, and the pump being set to work, we observed not, during the five or six first strokes, that the splendour of the included wood was lessened, but about the seventh it seemed to grow a little more dim, and afterwards, losing of its light more and more as the air was further pumped out, at length, about the tenth stroke, we could not perceive any light at all to proceed from the wood.

We let in the air again by degrees, and had the pleasure to see the seemingly extinguished light revive so fast, and perfectly, that it looked to us almost like a little flash of lightning, and the splendour of the wood seemed rather greater than before it was put into the receiver. On including the wood in a very small receiver of clear glass, it was found that in this the light would begin to grow faint at the second or third stroke, and at the sixth or seventh would quite disappear.

Having exhausted the receiver, till the wood quite disappeared, we stayed above a quarter of an hour in the dark, without perceiving that the wood had regained any thing of light, and then, on letting in the air, the wood presently recovered its light.

On placing a piece of red-hot iron properly within the receiver, and exhausting the air, the operation seemed not to have any effect on it as to alter its shining.

Having taken a stale and shining fish that was almost all over luminous, though much more in the belly and some parts of the head than elsewhere, and having suspended him in a conveniently shaped receiver, and having exhausted the receiver as much as usual, it appeared, indeed, especially towards the latter end of the operation, that the absence of the air considerably lessened, and in some places eclipsed the light of those parts that shone less strongly; but the belly appeared not much less luminous than before. On readmitting the air, the light was perceived to be as it were revived and increased, those parts of the fish that were scarce visible before, or shone but dimly, receiving presently their former splendour.

Having put into the receiver small pieces of rotten fish, that shone some of them more faintly and some of them more vividly in respect to one another, and having in a very small and clear receiver so far drawn off the air as to make

the included body disappear; after thus keeping out the air for about twenty-four hours, and then allowing it to re-enter in a dark place and late at night, upon its first admittance the fish regained its light.

Having put a piece of shining fish into a wide-mouthed glass, about half filled with fair water, and placed this glass in a receiver, the air was exhausted for a good while; it could not be perceived that either the absence or return of the air had any great effect upon the light of the immersed body.

Placing a very luminous piece of shining fish in the receiver, after exhausting it was kept there 48 hours, in which time its light gradually and wholly vanished; but on restoring the air it recovered its light again, as in the former instances.

The resemblances between burning coal and shining wood are as follow:-1. Both live coals and shining wood are luminous by their own light.-2. Both shining wood and burning coal require the presence of the air. - 3. Both shin. ing wood and a burning coal having been deprived for a time of their light, by the withdrawing of the contiguous air, may recover it by presently letting in fresh air upon them. 4. Both live coal and shining wood are easily extinguished by water and many other liquors.

Their differences are as follow: 1. Although the light of the coal is readily extinguishable by compression, the wood is not affected by it.-2. A live coal will in a very few minutes be totally extinguished by withdrawing the air; whereas shining wood immediately recovers its light if the air be admitted again.—3. A live coal being put into a small close glass continues to burn only a very few minutes; but a piece of shining wood continues to shine for whole days. 4. A coal as it burns emits a great deal of smoke or exhalations; but luminous wood does not. 5. A coal in shining wastes at a great rate; but shining wood does not. - 6. Live coal is vehemently hot; whereas shining wood is not sensibly lukewarm.

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Account by the celebrated Dr. HARVEY, of THOMAS PARR, who died in London at the Age of 152 Years and nine Months.[1669.]

PARR was a poor countryman of Shropshire, whence he was brought to London by Thomas Earl of Arundel to be shown to Charles I.; and he died Nov. 14. 1635, after he had out-lived nine sovereigns, and during the reign of the tenth, at the age of 152 years and nine months.

Being opened after his death, his body was found very fleshy, and his breast hairy, and lungs not fungous. His heart was great, thick, fibrous, and fat. His viscera very sound and strong, especially the stomach; and it was observed of him that he used to eat often by night and day, though contented with old cheese, milk, coarse bread, small beer, and whey; and he ate at midnight a little before he died. His bowels were also sound, a little whitish without. His spleen very little, hardly equalling the bigness of one kidney. In short, all his inward parts appeared so healthy, that if he had not changed his diet and air, he might perhaps have lived a good while longer.

The cause of his death was imputed chiefly to the change of food and air; for leaving a clear, free air, he came into the thick air of London, and after a constant, plain, and homely country diet, was taken into a splendid family, where he fed high, and drank plentifully of the best wines, whereupon the natural functions of the parts of his body were overcharged, his lungs obstructed, and the habit of the whole body quite disordered, upon which there could not but soon ensue a dissolution.

His brain was found entire and firm; and though he had not the use of his eyes, nor much of his memory, several years before he died, yet he had his hearing and apprehension very well, and was able even to the hundred and thirtieth year of his age to do any husbandman's work, even threshing of corn. At 120 he married a widow.

Some Observations concerning the darting of Spiders. In a Letter to Mr. J. RAY.-[1669.]

ALL spiders that spin a thread (those which we call shepherds or long-legged spiders never do) produce these threads observable in the air in summer in such infinite quantities every where, especially towards September. I had exactly marked all the ways of weaving used by any sorts of them, and in those admirable works I had always observed that they still let down the thread they made use of, and drew it after them. At length, in close attending on one that wrought a net, I saw her suddenly in the mid-work to desist, and turning her tail into the wind, to dart out a thread with the same violence that water spouts out of a spring; this thread, taken up by the wind, was in a moment emitted some fathoms long, still issuing out of the belly of the animal;