122 LEEUWENHOEK AND HIS ‘“‘ LITTLE ANIMALS ”’ 
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 erstwhile 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 porcelain 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 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 
animalcules,* which were very clear. 
* Anno 1676. 
* Unidentifiable. The animalcules from L.’s gutters were described by 
himself later. (Cf. p. 263 infra.) They include flagellates, ciliates, bacteria, 
and rotifers. 
* From the description which follows, these were probably the same 
as the “ very little animalcules”’ already described—.e., a species of Monas. 
