LETTER Vil. 28 JunE 1713 293 
these animalcules can’t displace ’emselves' in the water, 
they can’t” chase after their food, like all* other creatures 
do that are endowed with motion, so that they can get 
from place to place.’ 
These animalcules,’ then, and all the others too, that 
can’t shift ’emselves from place to place, either because 
they are fixt by the tail, or otherwise, must be furnisht 
with similar instruments, in order to make a stir in 
the water; whereby they get any stuff that is in the 
water for their food and growth and for the defense° 
of their body.’ 
And when we observe the animalcules that are fixt by 
a long tail*® to something or other, like many that we have 
discovered on the little roots of duckweed,’ we see that 
they don’t merely go round in a circle with the extreme 
part of their body “ (whereby they make, in proportion to 
the littleness of their body, a big bustle in the water) ; but 
the creatures can also pull their tails together, and that 
very quick too; so that when they stick their tails out 
again, they displace the water round about them, and 
1 Underlined in MS. but not italicized in printed version. 
2 There are slight verbal differences here between the MS. and the printed 
version, but they do not affect the sense. 
3 
alle is in Dutch printed version, but not in MS. 
* The Latin version adds “ whenever they want to” (quoties libet): but 
this is not in the Dutch. 
° Soin MS. The Dutch printed version has “ animals” (Dieren). 
S Referring to the pellets with which—as he had just described— 
Melicerta builds its house. : 
’ This passage is worded differently in the MS. and in the printed 
version, but the sense is identical. In the Phil. Trans. the two foregoing 
paragraphs were condensed into a single sentence. 
* i.e. Vorticellids. 
° Of. p. 277 sq., supra. 
” L. means that the body of the Vorticellid travels in a circle round 
the point of attachment of the stalk. The Latin translator apparently 
misunderstood these words, which he rendered “ extremitates corporis sui in 
orbem complicant’’. 
