EXPERIMENTS. 205 



defcribe the differences between the male and fe- 

 male animalcules, which never exifted but in 

 his own imagination. 



The famous Boerhaavc having afked Leeu- 

 wenhoek, whether he had obferved any diffe- 

 rences in the growth and fize of fpermatic ani- 

 mals ? Leeuwenhoek replied, that, in the femen 

 of a rabbit which he had opened, he faw an in- 

 finite number of animalcules : ' Incredibilem,' 

 fays he, * viventium animalculorum numerum 

 ' confpexerunt, cum haec animalcula fcypho 



* impofita vitreo et illic emortua, in rariores or- 



* dines difparaffent, et per continuos aliquot dies 

 - faepius vifu examinaffem, quaedam ad juftam 



* magnitudinem nondum excreviffe adverti. Ad 



* haec quafdam oblervavi particulas perexiles et 

 ' oblongas, alias aliis majores, et, quantum ocu- 



* lis apparebat, cauda deftitutas ; quas quidem 



* particulas noa nifi animalcula effe credidi, quae 



* ad juftam magnitudinem non excreviifent *.* 

 Here we have animalcules of different fizes, and 

 fome with tails, and others that had no tails, 

 which better correfpond with my experiments 

 than with Leeuwenhock's fyftem. We only 

 differ in a fingle article. He confiders the oblontr 

 bodies without tails as young animalcules which 

 have not yet arrived at their full growth : But I, 

 on the contrary, have fecn thefe pretended ani- 

 mals originally fpring from the filaments whh 

 their tails or threads, which thcv gradually loft. 



In 

 ♦ Sec torn. 4. p. 2Pc. 281. 



