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1 
LEEUWENHOEK AND HIS “ LITTLE ANIMALS ”’ 
many places is very marshy, or boggy. Its water is in 
winter very clear, but at the beginning or in the middle of 
summer it becomes whitish, and there are then little 
green clouds floating through it; which, according to the 
saying of the country folk dwelling thereabout, is caused 
by the dew, which happens to fall at that time, and which 
they call honey-dew. This water is abounding in fish, 
which is very good and savoury. Passing just lately’ 
over this lake, at a time when the wind blew pretty hard, 
and seeing the water as above described, I took up a little 
of it in a glass phial; and examining this water next day, 
I found floating therein divers earthy particles, and some 
green streaks, spirally wound serpent-wise, and orderly 
arranged, alter the manner of the copper or tin worms, 
which distillers use to cool their liquors as they distil 
over. The whole circumference of each of these streaks 
was about the thickness of a hair of one’s head. Other 
particles had but the beginning of the foresaid streak ; 
but all consisted of very small green globules joined 
together: and there were very many small green globules 
as well. Among these there were, besides, very many 
little animalcules,’ whereof some were roundish, while 
others, a bit bigger, consisted of an oval. On these last I 
saw two little legs near the head, and two little fins at 
the hindmost end of the body.* Others were somewhat 
longer than an oval, and these were very slow a-moving, 
and few in number.’ These animalcules had divers 
colours, some being whitish and transparent; others 
nu laest MS. The date of the observation is not more precisely stated, 
but it seems clear that the discoveries must have been made in the late 
summer (end of August or beginning of September ?) of 1674. 
> The common green alga Spirogyra: the earliest recorded observations 
on this organism. ‘The size of the filament negatives the suggestion that L. 
could have been referring to Arthrospira or Spirulina. 
* It can hardly be doubted that some, at least, of these animalcules were 
Protozoa. 
* Probably Rotifers—seen under a low magnification. 
5 
Probably Ciliates. 
