BIOLOGICAL BEGINNINGS 1 7 



examining it, I could discover therein no living creatures, but merely a 

 lot of irregular earthy particles. 



The 30th of May, after I -had, since the 26th, observed this water every 

 day, twice or thrice daily, I now first discovered some (though very few) 

 exceeding little animacules, which were very clear. 



On the 31st ditto, I discovered more little animals in the water, as well 

 as a few that were a bit bigger; and I imagine that ten hundred thousand of 

 these little animacules are not so big as an ordinary sand-grain. Compar- 

 ing these animacules with the little mites in cheese (which you can see 

 amoving with the bare eye), I would put the proportion thus: As the 

 size of a small animacule in the water is to that of a mite, so is the size of 

 a honey bee to that of a horse; for the circumference of one of these same 

 little animacules is not so great as the thickness of a hair on a mite. 



THE 4TH OBSERVATION. RAIN-WATER 



On June 9th, collected rain-water betimes in a dish, as aforesaid, and 

 put it at about 8 o'clock in the morning in a clean wine glass, and exposed 

 it to the air at about the height of the third storey of my house, wondering 

 whether the little animals would appear sooner in water thus standing in 

 the air. 



The loth ditto, observing this water, I fancied that I discovered living 

 creatures; but they were so few, and not so plainly discernible, I could not 

 accept this for the truth. 



On the nth ditto, seeing this water, with the naked eye, stirred in the 

 glass by a stiff gale of wind (which had now blown from the same 

 quarter for 36 hours; the weather being very cold withal, that it did not 

 irk me to wear my winter clothes), I had no thought of finding any living 

 creatures in it; but upon examining it, I saw with wonder quite 1000 living 

 creatures in one drop of water. These animacules were of the smallest sort 

 that I had yet seen. 



The 1 2th of June, in the morning (the wind being west, with both sun- 

 shine and an overcast sky), observing again, I saw the aforesaid animacules 

 in such great numbers in the water which I took from the surface, that now 

 they did not amount to merely one or two thousand in one drop. 



The 13th ditto, in the morning, examining the water again, I discovered, 

 beside the aforesaid animacules, a sort of little animals that were fully 

 eight times as big as the first; and whereas the small animacules swam gently 

 among one another, and moved after the fashion of gnats in the air, these 

 larger animacules had a much swifter motion; and as they turned and 

 tumbled all around and about, they would make a quick dart. These 

 animacules were almost round. 



On the 14th of June I did perceive the very little animacules in no less 

 number. 



