f the ashes, as 'twere, (as
it is fabled of the _Phoenix_) should raise a new _offspring_ for the
perpetuation of the _Species_. Nor will the cobweb, as it were, in which
these Eggs are inclos'd, make much against this Conjecture; for we may, by
those cobwebs that are carried up and down the Air after a Fog (which with
my _Microscope_ I have discovered to be made up of an infinite company of
small filaments or threads) learn, that such a texture of body may be
otherwise made then by the spinning of a Worm.

* * * * *

Observ. LVII. _Of the _Eels_ in Vinegar._

Of these small Eels, which are to be found in divers sorts of Vinegar, I
have little to add besides their Picture, which you may find drawn in the
third Figure of the 25. _Scheme_: That is, they were shaped much like an
Eel, save only that their nose A, (which was a little more opacous then the
rest of their body) was a little sharper, and longer, in proportion to
their body, and the wrigling motion of their body seem'd to be onely
upwards and downwards, whereas that of Eels is onely side wayes: They
seem'd to have a more opacous part about B, which might, perhaps, be their
Gills; it seeming always the same proportionate distant from their nose,
from which, to the tip of their tail, C, their body seem'd to taper.

Taking several of these out of their Pond of Vinegar, by the net of a small
piece of filtring Paper, and laying them on a black smooth Glass plate, I
found that they could wriggle and winde their body, as much almost as a
Snake, which made me doubt, whether they were a kind of Eal or Leech.

I shall add no other observations made on this minute Animal, being
prevented herein by many excellent ones already publish'd by the ingenious,
Doctor _Power_, among his _Microscopical_ Observations, save onely that a
quantity of Vinegar repleat with them being included in a small Viol, and
stop'd very close from the ambient air, all the included Worms in a very
short time died, as if they had been stifled.

And that their motion seems (contrary to what we may observe in the motion
of all other Infects) exceeding slow. But the reason of it seems plain, for
being to move to and fro after that manner which they do, by waving onely,
or wrigling their body; the tenacity, or glutinousness, and the density or
resistance of the fluid _medium_ becomes so exceeding sensible to their
extremely minute bodies, that it is to me indeed a greate