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Article ON THE IMPASSIBILITY OF INSECTS. ← Page 2 of 2 Article ON THE EXISTENCE OF MERMAIDS. Page 1 of 4 →
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On The Impassibility Of Insects.
opening their bellies as in the former case ; and , to try if I could stifle them , I put into the box in which they were enclosecLcamphor and spirit of turpentine , and they lived there , notwithstanding , several days . ' If you tear a leg from a fly , ' says the philosophical author of Etudes de la Nature , ' it moves about as if it had sustained no loss . When deprived of so considerable a memberit neither faints nor is
, convulsed ; emits no cry , nor shews any symptom of pain . Children of a cruel disposition amuse themselves with thrusting long straws info the anus of these insects ; and , thus impaled , they fly into the air , or walk and perform their usual movements , without seeming to be in the least affected by it . Reaumur , one day , cut off the flesh j' and muscular horn of a large caterpillar , which continued to
feed as if nothing had happened to it ' I have sometimes attempted to drown in spirits of wine certain kinds of insects . The most robust carnivorous kind would have been stifled by it in less than two minutes ; whereas these insects were often alive after an immersion of twenty-four hours . It is well known that Dr . Franklin recovered flies which he found in some bottles of wine that had been sent to him from Madeira , and which he had kept in his cellar for upwards of six months .
On The Existence Of Mermaids.
ON THE EXISTENCE OF MERMAIDS .
TO THE EDITOR . OF THE SCIENTIFIC MAGAZINE . SIR , IjlIAVING read in 3-our valuable miscellany ( Vol . I . page 388 . ) - - - some proofs of the existence of Mermaids , as adduced by Lord Monboddo ; and presuming that any farther facts relative to those generally believed fabulous monstersmust prove entertaining to your
, readers , I have sent you for insertion the following , which I have lately met with . ' In the month of June , 1761 , two girls of the island of Noirmontier , on the coast of Britanny , in France , seeking shells in the crevices of the rocks , discovered , in a kind of natural grotto , an animal of a human formleaning on its hands . One of the girlshaving
, , a long knife , stuck it into the animal , which , upon being wounded , groaned like a human person . The two girls cut off its hands , which had fingers and nails quite formed , with webs between the fingers . The surgeon of the island , who went to see it , says , it was as big as the largest man ; that its skin was white , resembling that of a drowned person ; that it had the breasts of a full-chested woman ; a fiat nose ;
a large mouth ; the chin adorned with a kind of beard , formed of fine shells ; and' over the whole body tufts of similar white shells . It had the tail of a fish , and at the extremity of it a kind of feet . Mcrcure de France , April 1762 .
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software.
On The Impassibility Of Insects.
opening their bellies as in the former case ; and , to try if I could stifle them , I put into the box in which they were enclosecLcamphor and spirit of turpentine , and they lived there , notwithstanding , several days . ' If you tear a leg from a fly , ' says the philosophical author of Etudes de la Nature , ' it moves about as if it had sustained no loss . When deprived of so considerable a memberit neither faints nor is
, convulsed ; emits no cry , nor shews any symptom of pain . Children of a cruel disposition amuse themselves with thrusting long straws info the anus of these insects ; and , thus impaled , they fly into the air , or walk and perform their usual movements , without seeming to be in the least affected by it . Reaumur , one day , cut off the flesh j' and muscular horn of a large caterpillar , which continued to
feed as if nothing had happened to it ' I have sometimes attempted to drown in spirits of wine certain kinds of insects . The most robust carnivorous kind would have been stifled by it in less than two minutes ; whereas these insects were often alive after an immersion of twenty-four hours . It is well known that Dr . Franklin recovered flies which he found in some bottles of wine that had been sent to him from Madeira , and which he had kept in his cellar for upwards of six months .
On The Existence Of Mermaids.
ON THE EXISTENCE OF MERMAIDS .
TO THE EDITOR . OF THE SCIENTIFIC MAGAZINE . SIR , IjlIAVING read in 3-our valuable miscellany ( Vol . I . page 388 . ) - - - some proofs of the existence of Mermaids , as adduced by Lord Monboddo ; and presuming that any farther facts relative to those generally believed fabulous monstersmust prove entertaining to your
, readers , I have sent you for insertion the following , which I have lately met with . ' In the month of June , 1761 , two girls of the island of Noirmontier , on the coast of Britanny , in France , seeking shells in the crevices of the rocks , discovered , in a kind of natural grotto , an animal of a human formleaning on its hands . One of the girlshaving
, , a long knife , stuck it into the animal , which , upon being wounded , groaned like a human person . The two girls cut off its hands , which had fingers and nails quite formed , with webs between the fingers . The surgeon of the island , who went to see it , says , it was as big as the largest man ; that its skin was white , resembling that of a drowned person ; that it had the breasts of a full-chested woman ; a fiat nose ;
a large mouth ; the chin adorned with a kind of beard , formed of fine shells ; and' over the whole body tufts of similar white shells . It had the tail of a fish , and at the extremity of it a kind of feet . Mcrcure de France , April 1762 .