Chapter 9

Observations on Vinegar

For the last 2 or 3 years I have not been able to find any little worms, or eels, in the vinegar that I keep in a cask in my cellar, for my household. I now drew off 1/3 pint of this vinegar into a glass, and set it in my closet, covering it over with a paper to keep off the dust: and after the lapse of 11 days, I did perceive therein little eels, which multiplied from day to day. I have divers times put a little vinegar into a little pepper-water, and have always seen that as soon as the pepper-water was mixed with the vinegar, the animalcules that were in the pepper-water died instantly; albeit that I was unable to perceive that the little eels, which were in the vinegar, suffered any hurt from the pepper-water...

—Anthony Van Leeuwenhoek, Letter 18 (October 1676)

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Newt


I had three newts. I bought them at a pet store. The newts did not seem to appreciate or notice me very much. They had nothing to do. I tried to guess what their natural habitat would be and put rocks in the aquarium and bought plastic plants at the pet store, and made hills in the blue gravel with my hand so that they would have something to do. They didn't spend much time below the surface of the water. Mostly they floated on top with their nostrils making hills in it. I floated popsicle sticks and the tops of margarine containers on the surface there so that in case they got tired from floating they could rest. Their eyes were even with the surface and they might not have been able to see that the rafts would support them. When I picked them up and put them on these rafts to give them the idea they crawled off and returned to floating. Since they did not move very vigorously when they were out of the water I'd pick them up with my hand and put them in a bowl when I cleaned their tank. Before I left the house I saw one at the bottom of the tank at the base of one of the plastic plants. It was at an angle on its side with its nose touching the gravel and its tail floating slightly higher and not touching it. The plant was swaying and it was swaying too, I remembered. The next day I remembered it. The next day I did when I got home and was standing at my front door. A translucent haze, which I could see from close up but not from my bed, was across its arm and over its shoulder. I didn't want to touch the water with my hand.



Heather Ramsdell