Some of these that had no hole in them, I
carefully opened with my Knife, and found in them a good large round white
Maggot, almost as bigg as a small Pea, which seem'd shap'd like other
Maggots, but shorter. I could not find them to move, though I ghess'd them
to be alive, because upon pricking them with a Pinn, there would issue out
a great deal of white _mucous_ matter, which seem'd to be from a voluntary
contraction of their skin; their husk or matrix consisted of three Coats,
like the barks of Trees, the outermost being more rough and spongie, and
the thickest, the middlemost more close, hard, white, and thin, the
innermost very thin, seeming almost like the skin within an Egg's shell.
The two outermost had root in the branch or stick, but the innermost had no
stem or process, but was onely a skin that cover'd the cavity of the Nut.
All the Nuts that had no holes eaten in them, I found to contain these
Maggots, but all that had holes, I found empty, the Maggots, it seems,
having eaten their way through, taken wings and flown away, as this
following account (which I receiv'd in writing from the same person, as it
was sent him by his Brother) manifests. _In a moorish black Peaty mould,
with some small veins of whitish yellow Sands, upon occasion of digging a
hole two or three foot deep, at the head of a Pond or Pool, to set a Tree
in, at that depth, were found, about the end of _October 1663.
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