276 
LEEUWENHOEK AND HIS ‘‘ LITTLE ANIMALS”’ 
I take the liberty of informing you, Gentlemen, that I 
have oft heard the common people say that duckweed’, 
which floats on the water, is generated in the ground 
underneath. 
I could not allow of the truth of this assertion; for 
whenever I examined duckweed, I always found that one 
of these plants is produced by another, as with trees and 
other vegetables. 
Whenever I turned my attention to duckweed, I always 
noticed that it never grows in deep water, even though 
the water be small and stagnant, and without motion, 
save such as is imparted to it by the wind’; but it is 
seen in great plenty on broad sheets of water, which are 
not deep and have little motion, but especially in narrow 
and shallow ditches. 
I have also observed that in ditches wherein there is 
very little water, the duckweed is very small, in com- 
parison with that which is found on big sheets of water, 
along the banks, where the water is shallow and has but 
little motion. 
Delfshaven, belonging to our Town, lies about two 
hours’ distant from it; and from here, through a sluice 
from the River Maas, the water that runs through our 
town is let in with the flood in summertime, and this 
water is then as clear as though we had the River Maas 
itself here. 
Now with this running water there is brought in, from 
time to time, a little duckweed ; yet so little, that ’twould 
take you half an hour to collect thirty little weeds in a | 
pot all at once. I got some of the duckweed scooped out 
of this water, in an earthen pot, with lots of water, so 
that their roots might not be hurt. 
I took several of these little weeds out of the pot of water 
' het kroost MS. (alibi Eende kroost)=“ Lens palustris” of the old 
writers = Lemna of modern botanists. 
ge 
‘and that the Wind does it no harm’’ Chamberlayne. This is a 
mistranslation. 
