228 
1 
LEEUWENHOEK AND HIS ‘‘ LITTLE ANIMALS ”’ 
I then bethought me to examine the dirt of hens; and 
in order to get it clean, I squeezed the dirt out of a fowl’s 
body as soon as it was dead. On viewing it, I saw 
therein a huge number of little snakes or eels, which I 
considered to be the fowl’s seed; as indeed it was. For 
the cock was more than half full-grown ;’ and I took it 
for certain that in squeezing out its dirt, I had compressed 
its seed-vessels so violently that I squeezed the material 
out of them too. Afterwards I squeezed the dirt out of 
the hind end of several young hens, but I didn’t discover 
anything but one living animalcule, which was about as 
big as a sixth of a blood-globule. The dirt consisted, 
further, of a clear matter, mixed with very many globules 
as big as a sixth of a blood-globule. These also looked as 
though they were composed of 2, 3, 4, 5, or 6 globules 
stuck together. And there were besides very many wee 
globules whereof 36 together (so I imagined) would be 
only as big as a blood-globule. 
I also” gently pressed the dirt out of two new-killed 
pigeons, that were about a month old; and in the first I 
couldn’t find any living animalcules at all. But in the 
dirt from the second pigeon (which was much clearer 
than the first’s) I saw many animalcules;* so that I 
judged there were quite 100 of ’em in a bit as big asa 
sand-grain. ‘These moved among one another very 
prettily *, and were all of one and the same bigness, 
having the figure of an egg, and being in my judgement 
as big as a sixth part of one of our blood-globules. 
Beyond this, the stuff was like what I have described 
above from hens. 
half volwassen MS. volwassen printed version. I follow the MS. 
because it is difficult to comprehend how the bird could have been “ more 
than full-grown’”’. The Latin translator evaded the ambiguity by calling 
the fowl “ major annis gallus’’. 
* ook MS. omitted from printed letter. 
* Bacteria of some sort, in all probability. 
* seer aerdig MS. but the Dutch printed letter says seer vaardig [| =very 
quickly] —which is concordantly rendered expeditissime in the Latin. 
