( i62 ) 



came barren, and that in their nature they required to be kept jnoifl ; 

 confequcntly, that if I treated them in the fame manner as the former, 

 I fhoiUd never obtain my wifli to dii'cover their fpecies. I therefore 

 put thcfe, and the moifi: earth wherein they lay, into a glafs tube, 

 about ten inches long, and three quarters of an inch wide, one end 

 of which I had doled together by heat, and the other I flopped with 

 a cork, by which means wjiatevcr moifture might evaporate from 

 the earth, would be confined by the glafs, and, there condenfing, the 

 greater part of it would fall back on the earth, and keep it, and the 

 eggs, always moift. 



This tube I placed in my clofet, fo as to be continually in the way 

 of my notice, and, after fome days, I faw, to my great furprize, two 

 fmall * Snails, of that fpecies which infeftthe branches of vines, (and 

 which are called bv us Wyngaart-flakken, Vine-fnails or Vine-flugs) 

 on the infide of the tube, and which had crept out of the eartli con- 

 tained in it. 



I then took out of the tube an egg, or rather what was now become 

 a fmall Snail, with part of tlie egg ihell adhering to it, and put it into 

 a fmaller tube, in order to examine it by the microfcope more 

 accurately; and thereupon I perceived in one of the horns a very ra- 

 pid motion, performed in a veilel, apparently an artery, and wliich I 

 judged to be about one fourtli part the fize of an hair. This motion 

 was not an uniform or continued one, but by fits, or pulfes, and, fo 

 quick, that I judged the juices in the veflel were propelled forward, 

 three times within the period of one pulfation in the human body ; 

 and I concluded, that this veflel muft certainly be an artery, and not 

 fardiftant from the heart, becaufethe quick pulfations I have noted, 

 could not, otherwife, have been fo diftin6fly feen. 



Tlie next morning this fmall Snail was dead ; as I guefTed, for want 

 of food, for the others of the fame fize, which were in the larger- 



* Mr. Lecuweiihoek has not given a figure of this animal. 



