VOL. XII.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 375 



I also discovered a second sort, of an oval figure ; and I imagined their head 

 to stand on the sharp end. These were a little larger than the former. The 

 inferior part of their body is flat, furnished with several extremely thin feet, 

 which moved very nimbly. The upper part of the body was round, and had 

 within 8, 10, or 12 globules, where they were very clear. These little animals 

 sometimes changed their figure into a perfect round, especially when they came 

 to lie on any dry place. Their body was also very flexible ; for as soon as they 

 struck against any the smallest fibre or string, their body was bent in, which 

 bending presently also jerked out again. When I put any of them on a dry 

 place, I observed that, changing themselves into a round, their body was raised 

 pyramidal- wise, with an extant p6mt in the middle; and having laid thus a little 

 while, with a motion of their feet, they burst asunder, and the globules were 

 presently diffused and dissipated, so that I could not discern the least thing of 

 any film, in which the globules had doubtless been enclosed; and at this time 

 of their bursting asunder, I was able to discover more globules than when they 

 were alive. 



I observed a third sort of little animals, that were twice as long as broad, and 

 to my eye yet eight times smaller than the first. Yet I thought I discerned 

 little feet, whereby they moved very briskly, both in a round and straight 

 line. 



There was a fourth sort, which were so small that I was not able to give 

 them any figure at all. These were a thousand times smaller than the eye of a 

 large louse. These exceeded all the former in celerity. I have often observed 

 them to stand still as it were on a point, and then turn themselves about with 

 that swiftness, as we see a top turn round, the circumference they made being 

 no larger than that of a small grain of sand, and then extending themselves 

 straight forward, and by and by lying in a bending posture. I discovered also 

 several other sorts of animals; these were generally made up of such soft parts, 

 as the former, that they burst asunder as soon as they came to want water. 



May l6, it rained hard, the rain growing less, I caused some of that rain- 

 water, running down from the house-top, to be gathered in a clean glass, after 

 it had been washed two or three times with the water. And in this I observed 

 some few very small living creatures, and seeing them, I thought they might 

 have been produced in the leaden gutters in some water that had remained there 

 before. 



I perceived in pure water, after some days, more of those animals, as also 

 some that where somewhat larger. And I imagine, that many thousands of 

 these little creatures do not equal an ordinary grain of sand in bulk; and com- 

 paring them with a cheese-mite, which may be seen to move with the naked 



