In divers other of these Eggs I
could plainly enough, through the shell, perceive the small Insect lie
coyled round the edges of the shell. The shape of the Egg it self, the
Figure pretty well represents (though by default of the Graver it does not
appear so rounded, and lying above the Paper, as it were, as it ought to
do) that is, it was for the most part pretty oval end-ways, somewhat like
an Egg, but the other way it was a little flatted on two opposite sides.
Divers of these Eggs, as is common to most others, I found to be barren, or
addle, for they never afforded any young ones. And those I usually found
much whiter then the other that were prolifick. The Eggs of other kinds of
Oviparous Insects I have found to be perfectly round every way, like so
many Globules, of this sort I have observ'd some sorts of Spiders Eggs; and
chancing the last Summer to inclose a very large and curiously painted
Butterfly in a Box, intending to examine its gaudery with my _Microscope_,
I found within a day or two after I inclos'd her, almost all the inner
surface of the Box cover'd over with an infinite of exactly round Eggs,
which were stuck very fast to the sides of it, and in so exactly regular
and close an order, that made me call to mind my _Hypothesis_, which I had
formerly thought on for the making out of all the regular Figures of Salt,
which I have elsewhere hinted; for here I found all of them rang'd into a
most exact _triagonal_ order, much after the manner as the _Hemispheres_
are place on the eye of a Fly; all which Eggs I found after a little time
to be hatch'd, and out of them to come a multitude of small Worms, very
much resembling young Silk-worms, leaving all their thin hollow shells
behind them, sticking on the Box in their _triagonal_ posture; these I
found with the _Microscope_ to have much such a substance as the Silk-worms
Eggs, but could not perceive them pitted.
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