Credit: ©The Royal Society
    Image number: RS.15789

    Gall nuts on the leaf of a willow tree and the larvae of a sawfly

    Date
    28 January 1701
    Creator
    Unknown, Artist
    Object type
    Archive reference number
    Manuscript page number
    p9
    Material
    Dimensions
    height (page): 224mm
    width (page): 175mm
    Subject
    Description
    Eight figures in a letter by Antoni van Leeuwenhoek to Hans Sloane.

    Fig. A: leaf of a willow tree
    Fig. 1: little fly, in real size
    Fig. 2: a sting-like part, which under the microscope turned out to be closed (and therefore cannot be a sting) and covered with hairs
    Fig. 3: the sting, after being separated from its 'case'
    Fig. 4: a detail of the sting shown in fig. 3
    Fig. 5: the second case
    Fig. 6: a larva
    Fig. 7: a pupa.
    Object history
    The Journal book mentions on 26 February 1700/1, 'A Letter was read from Mr Leeuwenhoek, wherein he gives an Account of Worms on Willows, & of Cheese-mites. He was order'd the Thanks of the Society' (JBO/10/212).

    The letter with images was printed in:
    A. Leeuwenhoek, ‘Concerning Excrescencies Growing on Willow Leaves’, Phil. Trans. vol. 23, no. 269 (February 1701), pp. 786-92.
    A. van Leeuwenhoek, Sevende vervolg der brieven (Delft: H. van Krooneveld, 1702), pp. 308-19.
    A. van Leeuwenhoek, Epistolae Ad Societatem Regiam Anglicam (Leiden: J. A. Langerak, 1719), pp. 293-303.
    Related fellows
    Antoni van Leeuwenhoek (1632 - 1723, Dutch) , Naturalist
    Hans Sloane (1660 - 1753, Irish) , Physician
    Associated place
    <The World>
       > Europe
          > Netherlands
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