194 LEEUWENHOEK AND HIS ‘“‘ LITTLE ANIMALS ”’ 
This serves as a continuation of my letter of the 5th of 
April [1680], wherein I noted how I had observed living 
animalcules* in the sap leaking from the shoots of the 
vine standing in my court-yard; whereas in the sap 
which dripped from the vines in my garden, I could 
discover no living creature. I have divers times turned 
my thoughts to this matter, and can find no more 
satisfactory explanation thereof than the following : 
The rain-water, which is drawn aloft by the power of 
the sun, and forms the clouds, is commingled with the 
seed of these animalcules; and as it had been raining for 
several days running, before the date of my first observa- 
tions on vine-sap, the tags of leather, wherewith the 
branches of the vine were nailed fast against a stone 
wall, had become quite water-logged; but afterwards there 
followed a warm sunshine, which caused the vine-branches 
to drip, and thus the foresaid leathern tags were kept 
continually wet, by the dripping of the vine upon them; 
and in this manner not only did divers sorts of animals 
come forth from this rain-water, but they even (so I 
imagine) bred in it, and swam along the vine-branches, 
even to the topmost part of the vine, where the moisture 
dropped out. 
About 24 hours after I had dispatched my observations 
to Mr. Hooke, the vine-branches in my court-yard 
stopped dripping, and the weather grew uncommon warm, 
so that the vine-branches, and the leathers as well, got 
quite dry: hereafter, it rained near the whole night, then 
the sun shone in the morning, and it rained afresh in the 
afternoon: and observing that the leathern tags (with 
which, as remarked above, the branches of the vine were 
nailed fast to the wall) were once more soaked through, I 
in Brieven, Vol. I (Dutch), Opera Omnia, Vol. I (Latin), and briefly abstracted 
in English in Phil. Trans. (1693), Vol. XVII, No. 196, pp. 593-4,—along 
with the preceding letter. It was presented at a meeting of the Society on 
« 13 May 1680 [0.S.] (Birch, Vol. IV, p. 37). I translate the whole letter, 
with the exception of a few words at the beginning and the end. 
1 The MS. says Dierkens, but the printed letter has Dieren (=animals). 
