In the above Account of their first coming, Esquire Pitfield and Mr. White, a Chymist, Men of great Probity and Curiosity, agreed.
And as the Sap of Deal is one of their beloved Foods, this probably might be the first way they were brought. How they are still brought, I shall speak to more fully hereafter, in my Instructions to avoid them.
Finding no satisfactory Account of their Nature, Breeding, and Feeding, to be come at from others, I was resolved assiduously to set about and try all possible ways to attain it myself. My first Step was to purchase and try Microscopes, and all such Helps as could be got, and to devise such others as might contribute thereto; by which I am enabled to give you the following Descriptions of Buggs, &c. which the better to illustrate, is annexed from a Copper-Plate, curiously engraven by the famous Mr. Vandergucht, the different Species and Sizes of Buggs, as well as one correctly and finely magnified.
I was not so fond of my own Performance, as to think my Treatise merited so great an Ornament. But as the Learned and Judicious Sir Hans Sloane had done me the Honour to peruse and approve of my Manuscript, and thought it worthy thereof, and also desired and directed the doing the said Plate by so good a Hand; I should have been wanting to myself, had I not, in deference and respect to his Opinion and Request, annex’d the same.
A Bugg’s Body is shaped and shelled, and the Shell as transparent and finely striped as the most beautiful amphibious Turtle; has six Legs most exactly shaped, jointed and bristled as the Legs of a Crab. Its Neck and Head much resembles a Toad’s. On its Head are three Horns picqued and bristled; and at the end of their Nose they have a Sting sharper and much smaller than a Bee’s. The Use of their Horns is in Fight to assail their Enemies, or defend themselves. With the Sting they penetrate and wound our Skins, and then (tho’ the Wound is so small as to be almost imperceptible) they thence by Suction extract their most delicious Food, our Blood. This Sucking the Wound so given, is what we improperly call biting us.
By often nightly watching and daily observing them with the best of Helps, having discover’d Males from Females, I determin’d, and then did put up a Pair in a Glass, as believing that to keep them the Year round, would be the only and best way to find the Nature of their breeding, feeding, &c. and be a means to discover what had occasion’d the Difficulties I had met with in my Endeavours and Practice of destroying them.
As the Thought was à propos, and the Event having answer’d Expectation, I shall now inform you of my Observations and Discoveries thereby made.
As I put up the Pair aforesaid, so did I another Pair that day Fortnight, and so every Fortnight for eighteen Months, did I put up others, with various Foods.