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IN this slimy Animal (the slow-paced Engine of Na∣ture) are very many rare and excellent Observables. The first is his Eyes, which are four in number, (like black atramentous Spots) fixed to the end of their horns; or rather to the ends of those black filaments or optick nerves, which are sheathed in her horns which she can retract or protrude, through the hollow trunck of her horns, as she pleaseth.
If with your finger you take hold of the tip of her
horn when fully extended, and draw out this nervous filament, or then nimbly clip off the extremities of her horns, you shall in the Microscope see those 2. black spots to be semi-spherical eyes, like two large blew Beads: and we could afterwards also, when she re-extended the stump, clearly perceive it with the bare eye to be tubu∣lous and hollow. And therefore however, though the learned Doctor Brown (my ever honoured friend) hath ranked this conceit of the Eyes of a Snail (and es∣pecially their quadruplicity) amongst the Vulgar errours of the multitude; yet through a good Microscope, he may easily see his own errour, and Nature's most admi∣rable variety in the plurality, paucity, and anomalous Situation of eyes, and the various fabrick and motion of that excellent organ; as our Observations will more particularly inform him.
If by a dextrous Dissection you would see the inter∣nal Fabrick of this Animal, there are many excellent things that will recompence your curiosity.
For first, you may find her Heart just over against that round hole near her neck (which Doctor Harvey in∣geniously conjectures to be the place of their respirati∣on; which hole you may observe to open and shut as she moves or stands still, and out of which I have ob∣served some salivous Matter to be evacuated.
We have observ'd her Heart to beat fairly for a quar∣ter of an hour after her dissection; afterwards we took out her guts which were of a pure green colour, by reason of the thinness of their film, and transparency of the green juice of hearbs with which they were re∣pleated.
They were all diaper'd or branched over with pure white Capillary little veins, which (by help of the Mi∣croscope)
we could discern to be hollow, with a blackish kind of pith running through the midst of the smallest of them, which doubtless was their nutrimental juice coagulated there, like the bloud starkn'd in the veins of dead Animals.
They are mouthed like a Hare or Rabbit, with four or six needle-teeth, like those in Leeches.
Nay this poor Animal (how contemptible soever it may seem) hath a whole Sett of the same parts and or∣gans with other Animals, as Heart, Liver, Spleen, Sto∣mach, Guts, Mouth and Teeth, Veins and Arteries: Yea and a pair more of the noblest of the Senses (the Eyes.)
Nay this Animal doth autoptically evince us, that, as sanguineous and more perfect Animals, have a circula∣tion of their bloud within them; so this more ignoble creature hath also a circulation of its nutritive humour, which is to it as Bloud is to other Animals.
Nay further (which is the best Remarkable of all) this juice hath not onely a circular motion; but also the very Animal Spirits (by which she moves) seem to have the like Circulation. For, if you observe her with the bare eye to creep up the sides of a glass, you shall see a little stream of clouds, channel up her belly from her tail to her head, which never return again the same way, but probably go backwards again from the head down the back to the tail; and thus, so long as she is in local motion they retain their circulation, which is a plea∣sant spectacle. And more pleasant, if you let her creep upon the lower side of your glass-object-plate, and so view that wavy Current of Spirits through the Micros∣cope; which handsome experiment does not onely prove the Spirit's circular motion, but also ocularly demon∣strates
that the Animal Spirits are the Soul's immedi∣ate instrument in all Loco-motion.
Now if you reply that it is onely the parts of her bo∣dy, that moving by a kind of undulation protrude one another forwards, as Palmer-worms (which we call Wool-boys,) and some sort of Caterpillars do: To this I answer, that do but intensly observe any one of the former spots or clouds, and you shall see it go quite a∣long from the tail to the head, keeping alwayes an e∣qual distance from the precedent and subsequent spot: so that it is far more ingenious to believe it to be a gale of Animal Spirits, that, moving from her head along her back to her tail, and thence along her belly to her head again, is the cause of her progressive motion.