This is a Creature so officious, that ’twill be known to every one at one
time or other, so busie, and so impudent, that it will be intruding it self
in every ones company, and so proud and aspiring withall, that it fears not
to trample on the best, and affects nothing so much as a Crown; feeds and
lives very high, and that makes it so saucy, as to pull any one by the ears
that comes in its way, and will never be quiet till it has drawn blood: it
is troubled at nothing so much as at a man that scratches his head, as
knowing that man is plotting and contriving some mischief against it, and
that makes it oftentime sculk into some meaner and lower place, and run
behind a mans back, though it go very much against the hair; which ill
conditions of it having made it better known then trusted, would exempt me
from making any further description of it, did not my faithful _Mercury_,
my _Microscope_, bring me other information of it. For this has discovered
to me, by means of a very bright light cast on it, that it is a Creature of
a very odd shape; it has a head shap’d like that exprest in 35. _Scheme_
marked with A, which seems almost Conical, but is a little flatted on the
upper and under sides, at the biggest part of which, on either side behind
the head (as it were, being the place where other Creatures ears stand) are
placed its two black shining goggle eyes BB, looking backwards, and fenced
round with several small _cilia_, or hairs that incompass it, so that it
seems this Creature has no very good foresight: It does not seem to have
any eye-lids, and therefore perhaps its eyes were so placed, that it might
the better cleanse them with its fore-legs; and perhaps this may be the
reason, why they so much avoid and run from the light behind them, for
being made to live in the shady and dark recesses of the hair, and thence
probably their eye having a great aperture, the open and clear light,
especially that of the Sun, must needs very much offend them; to secure
these eyes from receiving any injury from the hairs through which it
passes, it has two horns that grow before it, in the place where one would
have thought the eyes should be; each of these CC hath four joynts, which
are fringed, as ’twere, with small brisles, from which to the tip of its
snout D, the head seems very round and tapering, ending in a very sharp
nose D, which seems to have a small hole, and to be the passage through
which he sucks the blood. Now whereas if it be plac’d on its back, with its
belly upwards, as it is in the 35. _Scheme_, it seems in several Positions
to have a resemblance of chaps, or jaws, as is represented in the Figure by
EE, yet in other postures those dark strokes disappear; and having kept
several of them in a box for two or three dayes, so that for all that time
they had nothing to feed on, I found, upon letting one creep on my hand,
that it immediately fell to sucking, and did neither seem to thrust its
nose very deep into the skin, nor to open any kind of mouth, but I could
plainly perceive a small current of blood, which came directly from its
snout, and past into its belly; and about A there seem’d a contrivance,
somewhat resembling a Pump, pair of Bellows, or Heart, for by a very swift
_systole_ and _diastole_ the blood seem’d drawn from the nose, and forced
into the body. It did not seem at all, though I viewed it a good while as
it was sucking, to thrust more of its nose into the skin then the very
snout D, nor did it cause the least discernable pain, and yet the blood
seem’d to run through its head very quick and freely, so that it seems
there is no part of the skin but the blood is dispers’d into, nay, even
into the _cuticula_; for had it thrust its whole nose in from D to CC, it
would not have amounted to the supposed thickness of that _tegument_, the
length of the nose being not more then a three hundredth part of an inch.
It has six legs, covered with a very transparent shell, and joynted exactly
like a Crab’s, or Lobster’s; each leg is divided into six parts by these
joynts, and those have here and there several small hairs; and at the end
of each leg it has two claws, very properly adapted for its peculiar use,
being thereby inabled to walk very securely both on the skin and hair; and
indeed this contrivance of the feet is very curious, and could not be made
more commodiously and compendiously, for performing both these requisite
motions, of walking and climbing up the hair of a mans head, then it is:
for, by having the lesser claw (a) set so much short of the bigger (b) when
it walks on the skin the shorter touches not, and then the feet are the
same with those of a Mite, and several other small Insects, but by means of
the small joynts of the longer claw it can bend it round, and so with both
claws take hold of a hair, in the manner represented in the Figure, the
long transparent Cylinder FFF, being a Man’s hair held by it.
The _Thorax_ seem’d cas’d with another kind of substance then the belly,
namely, with a thin transparent horny substance, which upon the fasting of
the Creature did not grow flaccid; through this I could plainly see the
blood, suck’d from my hand, to be variously distributed, and mov’d to and
fro; and about G there seem’d a pretty big white substance, which seem’d to
be moved within its _thorax_; besides, there appear’d very many small
milk-white vessels, which crost over the breast between the legs, out of
which, on either side, were many small branchings, these seem’d to be the
veins and arteries, for that which is analogus to blood in all Insects is
milk-white.
The belly is covered with a transparent substance likewise, but more
resembling a skin then a shell, for ’tis grain’d all over the belly just
like the skin in the palms of a man’s hand, and when the belly is empty,
grows very flaccid and wrinkled; at the upper end of this is placed the
stomach HH, and perhaps also the white spot II may be the liver or
_pancreas_, which, by the _peristalick_ motion of the guts, is a little
mov’d to and fro, not with a _systole_ and _diastole_, but rather with a
thronging or justling motion. Viewing one of these Creatures, after it had
fasted two dayes, all the hinder part was lank and flaccid, and the white
spot II hardly mov’d, most of the white branchings disappear’d, and most
also of the redness or sucked blood in the guts, the _peristaltick_ motion
of which was scarce discernable; but upon the suffering it to suck, it
presently fill’d the skin of the belly, and of the six scolop’d embosments
on either side, as full as it could be stuft, the stomach and guts were as
full as they could hold; the _peristaltick_ motion of the gut grew quick,
and the justling motion of II accordingly; multitudes of milk-white vessels
seem’d quickly filled, and turgid, which were perhaps the veins and
arteries and the Creature was so greedy, that though it could not contain
more, yet it continued sucking as fast as ever, and as fast emptying it
self behind: the digestion of this Creature must needs be very quick, for
though I perceiv’d the blood thicker and blacker when suck’d, yet, when in
the guts, it was of a very lovely ruby colour, and that part of it, which
was digested into the veins, seemed white; whence it appears, that a
further digestion of blood may make it milk, at least of a resembling
colour: What is else observable in the figure of this Creature, may be seen
by the 35. _Scheme_.
* * * * *