Viz. Their beloved Foods are Blood, dry’d Paste, Size, Deal, Beach, Osier, and some other Woods, the Sap of which they suck; and on any one of these will they live the Year round.
Oak, Walnut, Cedar and Mahogoney they will not feed upon; all Pairs I put up with those Woods for Food, having been soon starved to death.
Wild Buggs are watchful and cunning, and tho’ timorous of us, yet in fight one with another, are very fierce; I having often seen some (that I brought up from a day old, always inur’d to Light and Company) fight as eagerly as Dogs or Cocks, and sometimes one or both have died on the Spot. From those so brought up tame, I made the greatest Discoveries.
They are hot in Nature, generate often, and shoot their Spawn all at once, and then leave it, as Fish do.
They generally spawn about fifty at a time, of which Spawn about forty odd in about three Weeks time usually, (but sometimes two or three days more or less, according as the Weather proves more or less hot) come to life; the Residue proving addle, as do often the Eggs of Hens, &c.
Thus they spawn four times in a Season; viz. in March, May, July, and September: by which ’tis apparent to a Demonstration, that from every Pair that lives out the Season, about two hundred Eggs or Nits are produc’d; and that out of them, one hundred and sixty, or one hundred and seventy, come to Life and Perfection.
Some of the first Breed I have known to spawn the same Season they were hatched; but so few in Quantity, and those so weakly, that the Winter killed them.
I have also observed that in Rooms where constant Fires have been kept Night and Day, they have been so brisk and stout as to spawn in the Depth of Winter: but of all the Spawn I ever saw between September and March, not one ever came to Life.
This plainly evinces, that Natural Heat only produces Life in the Spawn, and that Artificial cannot.