Constantijn Huygens wrote Letter L-076 to Leeuwenhoek about the identification of little animals observed in pepper-water by his son Christiaan as well as the latter’s description of the scales on the wings of butterflies

This letter is known only by reference in L.’s reply.

In this letter, Constantijn Huygens writes to Leeuwenhoek about the identification of little animals observed in pepper-water by his son Christiaan Huygens as well as the latter’s description of the scales on the wings of butterflies.

For the context of the sequence of letters in late 1678 between Constantijn Huygens, his two sons, and Leeuwenhoek, see note 1 to Letter L-077 of 26 December 1678 to Constantijn Huygens, Collected Letters, vol. 2.

Huygens’s previous letter to Leeuwenhoek is Letter L-062 of 8 December 1677, in which he noted the historical signigicance of Leeuwenhoek’s discovery of sperm. Leeuwenhoek included that letter in its entirety within Letter L-349 to Rotterdam merchant and politician Harmen van Zoelen of 17 December 1698, Collected Letters, vol. 12, p. 259, there unnumbered. Leeuwenhoek used that letter to defend the priority of his discovery of sperm over the recent claims of Nicolaas Hartsoeker to have been the first.

Leeuwenhoekdid not reply to Huygens before he received the present letter, with which Huygens enclosed a set of drawings of little animals that his son Christiaan had observed in pepper-water and another set showing the scales on butterfly wings. In Leeuwenhoek’s prompt response in Letter L-077, he commented on each of Christiaan’s drawings. From his description, his own lenses provided far greater resolution than Christiaan’s.

Constantijn Huygens’s next letter to Leeuwenhoek is Letter L-082 of 4 May 1679.