THE ENVOY 371 
All Leeuwenhoek’s contemporaries regarded him as 
unquestionably the discoverer of his “little animals”. But 
his discoveries were soon confirmed by Hooke—as we have 
already seen—and by several other “philosophers”. In the 
last decade of the XVII Century the work of Buonanni' (1691) 
appeared, containing the first pictures of free-living ciliates, 
but reaffirming the doctrine of spontaneous generation—a 
small advance and a big step backwards at the same time. 
Of much greater importance were the papers by King’ (1698) 
and Harris * (1696), who both saw and described a variety of 
free-living protozoa and bacteria—tfrankly in imitation of 
Leeuwenhoek, but adding new facts and some original 
speculations. Of far less value, protozoologically, were the 
notes by Gray * (1696, 1697), who observed protozoa with his 
ingenious “ water-microscope” but gave only a slight account 
of what he saw. These five men—Hooke, Buonanni, King, 
Harris, and Gray—must all be regarded as belonging to the 
first generation of protozoologists. 
But by far the greatest scion of this generation still 
remains unknown to us by name. In two anonymous 
English publications’ which appeared in the Phil. Trans. in 
1703 are to be found some amazingly good figures of free- 
1 Filippo Buonanni, alias Philippus Bonannus (1638-1725), an Italian 
Jesuit priest. 
2 Sir Edmund King (1629-1709), M.D.; physician to Charles II, whom 
he attended during his last illness. He was elected F.R.S. in 1666. 
* The Rey. John Harris (1667 ?-1719), D.D., rector of Winchelsea in 
Sussex, F.R.S. (1696). Author of Lexicon Technicum (1704). 
* Stephen Gray (?-1736) was a physicist, who published a number of 
papers in the Phil. Trans. He was not made a Fellow of the Society 
until 1732. 
> See Anonymus (1703,1703a). The first paper consists of extracts from 
several letters written in 1702 and “communicated by Sir C. H.” [= Sir 
Charles Holt, not a Fellow] : the second comprises two other letters (1703) 
from “a Gentleman in the Country ”, communicated by “ Mr. C.” [probably 
John Chamberlayne]. All these letters were really written by the same 
person, whose identity I have vainly endeavoured to discover. The letters 
themselves are not in the Society’s archives or the British Museum (so far 
as I have been able to ascertain), and all the documents relating to them 
appear to have been destroyed. In view of their great interest, I have made 
repeated attempts to discover their authorship; but every clue has proved 
unavailing, and I fear that “The Gentleman in the Country” covered up 
his tracks on purpose—in order to remain anonymous for ever. 
