Volvox

On the 30th day of August, 1700, I ordered water to be drawn from the ditches where the wormy sheep drank

& when I came home, & was busy viewing the multiplicity of very small animals drifting through the water, I saw

very many great round particles of the bigness of a corn of sand moving & revolving in the water.

Their outward skin was quite set over with protruberant parts, which seemed triangular & pointed towards the end,

all orderly & equally distant, so that on one small body did stand about two thousand. This was to me

a very pleasant sight, because as often as I looked they never lay still & in all their motion never ceased to turn.

I fancied at first that they were small green animals. The smaller they were, the deeper green their colour,

but the largest, those as big as a great corn of sand, had turned clear, though each enclosed 5, 6

or 7 — nay, some to 12 small globules, of the same shape as the body that held them.

I thought it strange that in all the turning of the first globe, the globules within did not change their places in the least

& never came to touch. Then the largest & clearest of all began to open before my eyes,

& one of the round particles within, of a delicate green, slipped out & began to move in the water on its own,

as had the one it issued from — which now ceased all motion. Within a small time after,

a second & third also slipped out, one after the other, & so by degrees they all emerged.

After some time, the original particle united again with the water, for I could perceive no sign of it.

Most who would see these particles move in the water would swear they were live creatures, especially

the way they tumbled about from one side to another. But in three days time,

that great crowd of round particles & all the living creatures in the glass were gone.