1 6 READINGS IN BIOLOGICAL SCIENCE 



when they were aHve. This bursting asunder I figure to myself to happen 

 thus: imagine, for example, that you have a sheep's bladder filled with shot, 

 peas, and water; then, if you were to dash it apieces on the ground, the shot, 

 peas, and water would scatter themselves all over the place. 



Furthermore, I discovered a third sort of little animals, that were about 

 twice as long as broad, and to my eye quite eight times smaller than the 

 animacules first mentioned: and I imagined, although they were so small, 

 that I could yet make out their little legs, or little fins. Their motion was 

 very quick, both roundabout and in a straight line. 



The fourth sort of animacules, which I also saw amoving, were so small, 

 that for my part I can't assign any figure to 'em. These little animals were 

 more than a thousand times less than the eye of a full-grown louse (for I 

 judge the diameter of the louse's eye to be more than ten times as long as 

 that of the said creature), and they surpassed in quickness the animacules 

 already spoken of. I have divers times seen them standing still, as 'twere, 

 in one spot, and twirhng themselves round with a swiftness such as you see 

 in a whip-top a-spinning before your eye; and then again they had a cir- 

 cular motion, the circumference whereof was no bigger than that of a 

 small sand-grain; and anon they would go straight ahead, or their course 

 would be crooked. 



Furthermore I also discovered sundry other sorts of little animals; but 

 these were very big, some as large as the little mites on the rind of cheese, 

 others bigger and very monstrous. But I intend not to specify them; and 

 will only say, that they were for the most part made up of such soft parts, 

 that they burst asunder whenever the water happened to run off them. 



THE 2ND OBSERVATION. RAIN-WATER 



The 26th of May it rained very hard. The rain abating somewhat, I 

 took a clean glass and got rain-water, that came off a slate roof, fetched me 

 in it, after the glass had first been swilled out two or three times with the 

 rain-water. I then examined it, and therein discovered some few very 

 little animals; and seeing them, I bethought me whether they might not 

 have been bred in the leaden gutters, in any water that might ersru^hile have 

 been standing in them, 



THE 3RD OBSERVATION. RAIN-WATER 



On the same date, the rain continuing nearly the whole day, I took a 

 big procelain dish, and put it in my court-yard, in the open air, upon a 

 wooden tub about a foot and a half high: considering that thus no earthy 

 particles would be splashed into the said dish by the falling of the rain 

 at that spot. With the water first caught, I swilled out the dish, and the 

 glass in which I meant to preserve the water, and then flung this water 

 away: then, collecting water anew in the same dish, I kept it; but upon 



