As among greater Animals there are many that are scaled, both for ornament
and defence, so are there not wanting such also among the lesser bodies of
Insects, whereof this little creature gives us an Instance. It is a small
white Silver-shining Worm or Moth, which I found much conversant among
Books and Papers, and is suppos’d to be that which corrodes and eats holes
through the leaves and covers; it appears to the naked eye, a small
glittering Pearl-colour’d Moth, which upon the removing of Books and Papers
in the Summer, is often observ’d very nimbly to scud, and pack away to some
lurking cranney, where it may the better protect itself from any appearing
dangers. Its head appears bigg and blunt, and its body tapers from it
towards the tail, smaller and smaller, being shap’d almost like a Carret.
This the _Microscopical_ appearance will more plainly manifest, which
exhibits, in the third _Figure_ of the 33. _Scheme_, a conical body,
divided into fourteen several partitions, being the appearance of so many
several shels, or shields that cover the whole body, every of these shells
are again cover’d or tiled over with a multitude of thin transparent
scales, which, from the multiplicity of their reflecting surfaces, make the
whole Animal appear of a perfect Pearl-colour.
Which, by the way, may hint us the reason of that so much admired
appearance of those so highly esteem’d bodies, as also of the like in
mother of Pearl shells, and in multitudes of other shelly Sea-substances;
for they each of them consisting of an infinite number of very thin shells
or laminated orbiculations, cause such multitudes of reflections, that the
compositions of them together with the reflections of others that are so
thin as to afford colours (of which I elsewhere give the reason) gives a
very pleasant reflection of light. And that this is the true cause, seems
likely, first, because all those so appearing bodies are compounded of
multitudes of plated substances. And next that, by ordering any trasparent
substance after this manner, the like _Phænomena_ may be produc’d; this
will be made very obvious by the blowing of Glass into exceeding thin
shells, and then breaking them into scales, which any lamp-worker will
presently do; for a good quantity of these scales, laid in a heap together,
have much the same resemblance of Pearls. Another way, not less instructive
and pleasant, is a way which I have several times done, which is by working
and tossing, as ’twere, a parcel of pure crystalline glass whilst it is
kept glowing hot in the blown flame of a Lamp, for, by that means, that
purely transparent body will be so divided into an infinite number of
plates, or small strings, with interpos’d aerial plates and _fibres_, that
from the multiplicity of the reflections from each of those internal
surfaces, it may be drawn out into curious Pearl-like or Silver wire, which
though small, will yet be opacous; the same thing I have done with a
composition of red _Colophon_ and _Turpentine_, and a little Bee’s Wax, and
may be done likewise with Birdlime, and such like glutinous and transparent
bodies: But to return to our description.
The small blunt head of this Insect was furnish’d on either side of it with
a cluster of eyes, each of which seem’d to contain but a very few, in
comparison of what I had observ’d the clusters of other Insects to abound
with; each of these clusters were beset with a row of small brisles, much
like the _cilia_ or hairs on the eye-lids, and, perhaps, they serv’d for
the same purpose. It had two long horns before, which were streight, and
tapering towards the top, curiously ring’d or knobb’d, and brisled much
like the Marsh Weed, call’d Horse-tail, or Cats-tail, having at each knot a
fring’d Girdle, as I may so call it, of smaller hairs, and several bigger
and larger brisles, here and there dispers’d among them: besides these, it
had two shorter horns, or feelers, which were knotted and fring’d, just as
the former, but wanted brisles, and were blunt at the ends; the hinder part
of the creature was terminated with three tails, in every particular
resembling the two longer horns that grew out of the head: The leggs of it
were scal’d and hair’d much like the rest, but are not express’d in this
_Figure_, the Moth being intangled all in Glew, and so the leggs of this
appear’d not through the Glass which looked perpendicularly upon the back.
This Animal probably feeds upon the Paper and covers of Books, and
perforates in them several small round holes, finding, perhaps, a
convenient nourishment in those husks of Hemp and Flax, which have pass’d
through so many scourings, washings, dressings and dryings, as the parts of
old Paper must necessarily have suffer’d; the digestive faculty, it seems,
of these little creatures being able yet further to work upon those
stubborn parts, and reduce them into another form.
And indeed, when I consider what a heap of Saw-dust or chips this little
creature (which is one of the teeth of Time) conveys into its intrals, I
cannot chuse but remember and admire the excellent contrivance of Nature,
in placing in Animals such a fire, as is continually nourished and supply’d
by the materials convey’d into the stomach, and _fomented_ by the bellows
of the lungs; and in so contriving the most admirable fabrick of Animals,
as to make the very spending and wasting of that fire, to be instrumental
to the procuring and collecting more materials to augment and cherish it
self, which indeed seems to be the principal end of all the contrivances
observable in bruit Animals.
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