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If you ask what Insects those are, on whose Bodies I have
seen these Animalcula, I muft tell you they are of divers
sorts, and that I have obferv'd no fmall variety in the
water of our Ditches, not only of reptiles, and the Catter-
pillar kind, but of Eeles and perfect Shell-fifh, both Crus-
taceous and Testaceous, and have been so pleas'd with
the Beauty of some of them, that I have kept them many
weeks by me, as an agreeable entertainment for such as
are curious; and farther design'd, if I could have met with
a good hand in the Country, to have got some Figures of
then, which I had attempted my self, but with no satis-
faction. However, having preserv'd two tolerable Scetches
of two sorts of the Crustaceous kind, I venture to send
them you, since (tho much to the disadvantage of their
Beauty) they will give you a better notion of them than
any thing I can write. Fig. V. and VI. shews them as they
lye with their back towards you in a swimming posture,
but the Members and Legs on the other side are so various,
and so much more curiously form'd than those of Lobsters
and Shrimps, that I despair of giving any tolerable repre-
sentation of them in any other position. These are about
the same size, the biggest being rather less than a very
small Flea, and the least a little bigger than a Mite, but all
are Breeders, and carry their Spawn at their Tayl, that of
Fig. 5. in two Bags (one on each side) which are fasten'd
about the 5th joynt, and the other in a single Bag or Film
under the Tayl, and I have often seen these Bags broken,
and the Spawn (which is globular and large in the propor-
tion to the Fish) scatter d through the Water. There is also
among these a third sort of the same kind, not less elegant,
tho far less in bulk, which is shap'd more like a Shrimp,
and carries its Spawn like that, but I could never make any
Figure of it worth preserving; one thing I had like to have
forgot which is very remarkable, that all these three species
(as also some other Water Insects) are certainly mon cu-
lous, and have their Eye exactly in the middle of their
head,
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