of the sheath (tsrv) into the skin after it, and the crooks t, s, and r, v, being entred, when the Bee endeavours to thrust out the top of the sting out of the sheath again, they lay hold of the skin on either side, and do not onely keep the sheath from sliding back, but helps the top inwards, and thus, by an alternate and successive retracting and emitting of the Sting in and out of the sheath, the little enraged creature by degrees makes his revengfull weapon pierce the toughest and thickest Hides of his enemies, in so much that some few of these stout and resolute soldiers with these little engines, do often put to flight a huge masty Bear, one of their deadly enemies, and thereby shew the world how much more considerable in Warr a few skilfull Engineers and resolute soldiers politickly order’d, that know how to manage such engines, are, then a vast unweildy rude force, that confides in, and acts onely by, its strength.  But (to proceed) that he thus gets in his Sting into the skin, I conjecture, because, when I have observ’d this creature living, I have found it to move the Sting thus, to and fro, and thereby also, perhaps, does, as ’twere, pump or force out the poisonous liquor, and make it hang at the end of the sheath about b in a drop.  The crooks, I suppose also to be the cause why these angry creatures, hastily removing themselves from their revenge, do often leave these weapons behind them, sheath’d, as ’twere, in the flesh, and, by that means, cause the painfull symptoms to be greater, and more lasting, which are very probably caus’d, partly by the piercing and tearing of the skin by the Sting, but chiefly by the corrosive and poisonous liquor that is by this Syringe-pipe convey’d among the sensitive parts thereof and thereby more easily gnaws and corrodes those tender fibres:  As I have shewed in the description of a Nettle and of Cowhage.

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Observ.  XXXV. Of the contexture and shape of the particles of Feathers_._

Examining several sorts of Feathers, I took notice of these particulars in all sorts of wing-Feathers, especially in those which serv’d for the beating of the air in the action of flying.

That the outward surface of the Quill and Stem was of a very hard, stiff, and horny substance, which is obvious enough, and that the part above the Quill was fill’d with a very white and light pith, and, with the Microscope, I found this pith to be nothing else, but a kind of natural congeries of small bubbles, the films of which seem to be of the same substance with that of the Quill, that is, of a stiff transparent horny substance.