294 LEEUWENHOEK AND HIS “LITTLE ANIMALS ”’ 
being thus come into different water,’ they can get fresh 
food out of it. 
Now I also saw a very few animalcules’ (whose bodies 
were short and thick), that were much bigger than the 
animalcules that make a little case for their dwelling- 
place,’ and these were fixed to the little roots of the 
duckweed by their hindmost or tail-like part; and not- 
withstanding they were able to move from place to place, 
they also made none the less a circular motion with the 
foremost part of their body: whence I also concluded 
that such a motion was for no other purpose than to 
make anything that would serve as food come towards 
them.* 
I have ere now asked myself, What is the use of such 
a toothed wheelwork, like a cogged wheel out of a clock ? 
But if we now let our thoughts run on further, we must 
decide that such a thing is necessary, if a great stir is to 
be made in the water: for if it were a round and smooth 
wheel, it would make little motion in the water; whereas 
now every tooth that sticks out from the circumference 
causes a great stir in the water, in comparison with a 
smooth and even rotation. 
This being so, we are faced once more with the 
mysteries, and unconceivable order, which such tiny 
creatures (which quite escape one’s naked eye) are 
endowed with. 
1 Underlined in MS., but not italicized in printed versions. The phrase 
is rendered in Phil. Trans. “and so bringing fresh Water under them,’— 
which is incorrect. 
2 Clearly unidentifiable from this meagre description, but probably 
rotifers. 
* Referring to Melicerta (and the tubicolous ciliates ?). The word here 
translated “ dwelling-place”’ is in the original hwysvesting, which may mean 
“ edification ” in any of the literal or metaphorical senses which this word 
has in English. 
“ “From whence I concluded, that those Motions serv’d some other 
purposes than only to draw their Food to ’em.” Phil. Trans. The 
translator here completely reversed the sense of L.’s words. 
