A second is, whether these Eggs are immediately dropt into the Water by the
Gnats themselves, or, mediately, are brought down by the falling rain; for
it seems not very improbable, but that those small seeds of Gnats may
(being, perhaps, of so light a nature, and having so great a proportion of
surface to so small a bulk of body) be ejected into the Air, and so,
perhaps, carried for a good while too and fro in it, till by the drops of
Rain it be wash'd out of it.
A third is, whether multitudes of those other little creatures that are
found to inhabit the Water for some time, do not, at certain times, take
wing and fly into the Air, others dive and hide themselves in the Earth,
and so contribute to the increase both of the one and the other Element.
* * * * *
_Postscript._
A good while since the writing of this Description, I was presented by
Doctor _Peter Ball_, an ingenious Member of the _Royal Society_, with a
little Paper of Nuts, which he told me was sent him from a Brother of his
out of the Countrey, from _Mamhead_ in _Devonshire_, some of them were
loose, having been, as I suppose, broken off, others were still growing
fast on upon the sides of a stick, which seem'd by the bark, pliableness of
it, and by certain strings that grew out of it, to be some piece of the
root of a Tree; they were all of them dry'd, and a little shrivell'd,
others more round, of a brown colour; their shape was much like a Figg, but
very much smaller, some being about the bigness of a Bay-berry, others, and
the biggest, of a Hazel-Nut.
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