“ec 
284 LEEUWENHOEK AND HIS “ LITTLE ANIMALS” 
Whilst observing this last weed, I saw with wonder a 
creat many animalcules’ swimming in spirals through 
the water, and they were in such a great number together 
in so small a space, that they looked like a little cloud, 
visible to the naked eye, in the water; and animalcules 
of this sort I have never before seen in other waters, but 
on the second day they were nearly all gone. 
Furthermore, in this water there were so many sorts of 
animalcules that I had never discovered in any other 
waters, that I was mazed to see such a diversity of 
structures; and each too had its own proper motion, 
wherefore I many times looked upon these delightsome 
and wondrous little creatures, which quite escape the 
bare eye. 
During these observations, I saw one sort that exceeded 
many of the others in bigness, which were coupled 
together,” in which act they lay very still against the 
glass, unless a bigger sort came too near them: and as 
they lay still, you could leisurely discern those instru- 
ments wherewith they can so swiftly move themselves,° 
and even the motions of certain parts in their bodies, from 
which some would certainly conclude that they saw the 
circulation of the blood ;* but I would sooner take it for 
the chyle’ in the guts. These animalcules were so big 
that you could descry them” in a glass tube, with clear 
length. As this part of the letter—though very interesting—-is irrelevant 
to the present subject, I have omitted it, and resume the translation at the 
point where the animalcules are again referred to. 
’ Probably protozoa, but unidentifiable. 
? Probably ciliates conjugating. Cf. pp. 200, 205, 206, 213, supra. 
* Cilia, in all probability: but possibly cirrhi. 
“ This reference to the internal “circulation” is puzzling, unless L. 
actually observed the cyclosis of the food-vacuoles (in non-conjugating 
individuals) or the rhythmic pulsation of the contractile vacuoles. 
° A modern reader might perhaps consider chyle here to be a mistake 
for chyme: but in L.’s day these terms were often. used synonymously. Cf. 
Lexicon Medicum (Blankaart, 1748; p. 192)—‘‘cHYMUS, idem est quod 
” 
chylus’’. 
® j.e., with the naked eye. 
