STUDIES IN ANIMAL LIFE. 69 



can not be replaced mechanically it can only be 

 replaced by vital processes. Every one who has 

 made microscopic preparations must be aware that 

 when once a tissue is desiccated, it is spoiled; it 

 will not recover its form and properties on the ap- 

 plication of water, because the water was not orig- 

 inally worked into the web by a mere process of 

 imbibition like water in a sponge but by a molec- 

 ular process of assimilation, like albumen in a mus- 

 cle. Therefore I say that desiccation is necessarily 

 death, and the Eotifer which revives can not have 

 been desiccated. This being granted, we have only 

 to ask, What prevents the Eotifer from becoming 

 completely dried ? Experiment shows that it is the 

 presence of dirt or moss which does this. The 

 whole marvel of the Eotifer's resuscitation, there- 

 fore, amounts to this : that if the water in which it 

 lives be evaporated, the animal passes into a state 

 of suspended animation, and remains so as long as 

 its own water is protected from evaporation. 



I am aware that this is not easily to be reconciled 

 with M. Doyere's experiment, since the application 

 of a temperature so high as 300 Fahrenheit (nearly 

 a hundred degrees above boiling water) must, one 

 would imagine, have completely desiccated the ani- 

 mals, in spite of any amount of protecting dirt. It 

 is possible that M. Doyere may have mistaken that 

 previously-noticed swelling up of the bodies, on the 

 application of water, for a return to vital activity. 

 If not, I am at a loss to explain the contradiction ; 



