little. It is true that they have (some of them) a diaphragm and an intestine; and they have all skins; which in most of the insecta are cast often. They are not generally of long life; yet bees have been known to live seven years: and snakes are thought, the rather for the casting of their spoil, to live till they be old and eels, which many times breed of putrefaction, will live and grow very long: and those that interchange from worms to flies in the summer, and from flies to worms in the winter, have been kept in boxes four years at the least. Yet there are certain flies, that are called ephemera, that live but a day. The cause is the exility of the spirit; or perhaps the absence of the sun; for that if they were brought in, or kept close, they might live longer. Many of the insecta (as butterflies and other flies) revive easily when they seem dead, being brought to the sun or fire. The cause whereof is the diffusion of the vital spirit, and the easy dilating of it by a little heat. They stir a good while after their heads are off, or that they be cut in pieces; which is caused also, for that their vital spirits are more diffused throughout all their parts, and less confined to organs than in perfect creatures.

698. The insecta have voluntary motion, and therefore imagination; and whereas some of the ancients have said that their motion is indeterminate and their imagination indefinite, it is negligently observed; for ants go right forwards to their hills; and bees do (admirably) know the way from a flowery heath two or three miles off to their hives. It may be, gnats and flies have their imagination more mutable and giddy, as small birds likewise have. It is said by some of the ancients, that they have only the sense of feeling; which is manifestly untrue; for if they go forth-right to a place, they must needs have sight; besides they delight more in one flower or herb than in another, and therefore have taste: and bees are called with sound upon brass, and therefore they have hearing; which sheweth likewise, that though their spirit be diffused, yet there is a seat of their senses in their head.

'Aristotle, on the contrary, agrees with Bacon in thinking that insects possess all the senses, and gives much the same reasons. A curious proof of the existence of the sense of smell is that insects are deceived by the similarity of odours.

? The notion that the bee could only see a few inches before it, and consequently that its return to the same pasture was a proof of great memory, was founded upon an erroneous view of the nature of insect vision. The bee, like other insects, sees chiefly by means of a number of tubes, each pointed in its own direction, and each connected with a distinct nervous filament. There is therefore no assignable reason why it should not see as far as the stars. Sce Müller's Physiology.

Other observations concerning the insecta, together with the enumeration of them, we refer to that place where we mean to handle the title of animals in general.

Experiment solitary touching leaping.

699. A man leapeth better with weights in his hands than without. The cause is, for that the weight (if it be proportionable) strengtheneth the sinews by contracting them. For otherwise, where no contraction is needful, weight hindereth; as we see in horse-races men are curious to foresee that there be not the least weight upon the one horse more than upon the other. In leaping with weights, the arms are first cast backwards, and then forwards with so much the greater force; for the hands go backward before they take their raise. Quære, if the contrary motion of the spirits, immediately before the motion we intend, doth not cause the spirits as it were to break forth with more force: as breath also drawn and kept in cometh forth more forcibly and in casting of any thing, the arms, to make a greater swing, are first cast backward.

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Experiment solitary touching the pleasures and displeasures of the senses, especially of hearing.

700. Of musical tones and unequal sounds we have spoken before; but touching the pleasure and displeasure of the senses, not so fully. Harsh sounds, as of a saw when it is sharpened; grinding of one stone against another; squeaking or skriching noise; make a shivering or horror in the body, and set the teeth on edge. The cause is, for that the objects of the ear do affect the spirits (immediately) most with pleasure and offence. We see there is no colour that affecteth the eye much with displeasure: there be sights that are horrible, because they excite the memory of things that are odious or fearful; but the same things painted do little affect. As for smells, tastes, and touches, they be things that do affect by a participation or impulsion of the body of the object. So it is sound alone that doth immediately and incorporeally affect most. This is most manifest in music, and concords and discords in music; for all sounds, whether they be sharp or flat, if they be sweet, have a roundness and equality; and if they be harsh, are unequal; for a discord itself is but a harshness of divers sounds meeting. 1 Arist. Problem. v. 8.

It is true that inequality not stayed upon, but passing, is rather an increase of sweetness; as in the purling of a wreathed string; and in the raucity of a trumpet; and in the nightingale-pipe of a regal; and in a discord straight falling upon a concord: but if you stay upon it, it is offensive. And therefore there be these three degrees of pleasing and displeasing in sounds; sweet sounds; discords; and harsh sounds, which we call by divers names, as skriching or grating, such as we now speak of. As for the setting of the teeth on edge, we see plainly what an intercourse there is between the teeth and the organ of the hearing, by the taking of the end of a bow between the teeth, and striking upon the string.

NATURAL HISTORY.

CENTURY VIII.

Experiment solitary touching veins of medicinal earth.

701. THERE be minerals and fossils in great variety; but of veins of earth medicinal, but few; the chief are, Terra Lemnia', Terra Sigillata communis, and Bolus Arminus; whereof Terra Lemnia is the chief. The virtues of them are, for curing of wounds, stanching of blood, stopping of fluxes and rheums, and arresting the spreading of poison, infection, and putrefaction and they have of all other simples the perfectest and purest quality of drying, with little or no mixture of any other quality. Yet it is true that the Bole-Arminic is the most cold of them, and that Terra Lemnia is the most hot; for which cause the island Lemnos, where it is digged, was in the old fabulous ages consecrated to Vulcan.

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Experiment solitary touching the growth of spunges.

2

702. About the bottom of the Straits are gathered great quantities of spunges, which are gathered from the sides of rocks, being as it were a large but tough moss. It is the more to be noted, because that there be but few substances, plantlike, that grow deep within the sea; for they are gathered sometimes fifteen fathom deep: and when they are laid on shore, they seem to be of great bulk; but crushed together, will be transported in a very small room.

1 See, for some account of Terra Lemnia, Sandys's Travels, p. 18. (7th edition). 2 That is, the Hellespont. See Sandys, p. 14.

Experiment solitary touching sea-fish put in fresh waters.

703. It seemeth that fish that are used to the salt water, do nevertheless delight more in fresh. We see that salmons and smelts love to get into rivers, though it be against the stream. At the haven of Constantinople you shall have great quantities of fish that come from the Euxine Sea; that when they come into the fresh water, do inebriate and turn up their bellies, so as you may take them with your hand. I doubt there hath not been sufficient experiment made of putting sea-fish into fresh-water ponds and pools. It is a thing of great use and pleasure; for so you may have them new at some good distance from the sea: and besides, it may be, the fish will eat the pleasanter, and may fall to breed. And it is said, that Colchester oysters, which are put into pits where the sea goeth and cometh, (but yet so that there is a fresh water coming also to them when the sea voideth,) become by that means fatter and more grown.

Experiment solitary touching attraction by similitude of substance.

704. The Turkish bow giveth a very forcible shoot; insomuch as it hath been known that the arrow hath pierced a steel target, or a piece of brass of two inches thick: but that which is more strange, the arrow, if it be headed with wood, hath been known to pierce through a piece of wood of eight inches thick.3 And it is certain that we had in use at one time, for sea-fight, short arrows, which they called sprights, without any other heads, save wood sharpened; which were discharged out of muskets, and would pierce through the sides of ships where a bullet would not pierce. But this dependeth upon one of the

1 Sandys, p. 23. Modern experience has confirmed what Sandys here relates; but there is no reason to suppose that the fish have any enjoyment in the state of half insensibility which the change to fresh water produces. The cause is probably to be sought in what appears à priori to be certain,—namely, the rapid absorption through the gills of fresh water. All the conditions appear to be present by which absorption by endosmosis is occasioned. The periodical migrations from salt to fresh water, and vice versa, of certain kinds of fish may perhaps be connected with a change in the composition of the blood, determining endosmosis or exosmosis through the gills, and consequently rendering the fish uneasy in its actual position.

Has it ever been suggested that the persevering way in which salmon ascend rapid streams may result from the unequal velocity of the water at different depths? The consequence of this variation would be a sensation of greater pressure against the lower part of the body than on the upper; which under certain circumstances may be agreeable.

2 Id. p. 50.