BUCCAL BACTERIA REDESCRIBED 251 
Furthermore, I saw animalcules* that were of very 
near the same thickness, but of singular length. These 
had so little” motion that I had most times to confess 
they might not be living creatures at all; yet when I 
could keep my eye on them, without getting tired, I 
could make out that they bent their body very slow, just 
bending it into a very faint curve, so that they didn’t 
move forward, or very little. ‘These animalcules, as they 
looked to me, are shown in Fig. C. 
Now I also saw yet other animalcules,* that were of 
very nigh the same thickness, but which in length even 
surpassed those last described. But you seldom saw two 
of this sort alongside, or floating off in the wet stuff, that 
were of one and the same length. ‘These animalcules * too 
were ’ in great numbers, whereof some were straight, while 
others had a kink in them, as shown in Fig. D. But 
the longer these animals were, the less motion or lfe 
could I discern in them: and notwithstanding I could 
make out no life in ’em, yet I made sure they were living 
creatures, or had been such when they were in the mouth, 
and situated on the back teeth, where many are 
generated. 
But we must be still more amazed when we consider 
how these animalcules can move, and shift ’emselves 
about, in stuff as thick as this is when it is lodged upon 
and betwixt the teeth; and how hard and slow it must 
be for them to get about in such stuff. But when, on 
the other hand, the said stuff is mixed up with spittle, 
and by this mixing the animalcules find themselves in a 
fluid material, many of them feel released, as it were, and 
never stop moving, so far as the eye can see. 
- 
? Leptothria. 
seer weignig MS. soo weynig printed version. 
N 
* Leptothrix—almost certainly. 
* Dierkens MS. omitted from printed letter. 
sijn MS. and printed version: apparently a mistake for waren. The 
Latin version has erant, and I make the same correction. 
oa 
