REPRODUCTION. 15 



the day. If stalks of flowers are steeped for 

 a few days in water, it will be found to swarm 

 with life ; even a few dead leaves, or a bit of dry 

 hay, will produce the same effect. At first monads 

 will appear ; these will be succeeded by specimens 

 of the genera Paramecium, Amoeba, and those of 

 the class Eotatoria. I have tried these experiments, 

 and always with success. If the infusion be 

 kept a few weeks (particularly that formed with 

 leaves), one peculiar kind of animalcule will swarm 

 to a most astonishing degree, so that a drop will 

 contain hundreds, so close together that they form 

 quite a crowd, and yet all are in a state of activity, 

 and feeding from the vegetable matter disengaged 

 from the decaying leaves. They are not even con- 

 fined to these localities, for lakes and rivers, the 



