Bibliographical Notices. 135 



no part of the editorial duty ; or to speak without a metaphor, the 

 book has been collected, not edited at all. 



We by no means make these remarks in a spirit of detraction. 

 The book is a very useful one, and will be of great service to those 

 who are at work upon the Infusoria. To publish such a book at all 

 involves a great risk to any one who undertakes it, and our sole regret 

 is, that such a risk having been incurred, the opportunity should not 

 have been seized for building an edifice, instead of merely filling a 

 large cart with materials ; some of them very rough stones indeed, 

 as for instance the following : — 



" It will be sufiicient therefore to say, that since the time of their 

 discovery (1676) up to the present period, all that we know of the 

 true spermatozoa of animals is, that they are not distinguishable 

 from Cercaria found in the liver of snails, the animal organization of 

 which has been made out by Bauer, Wagner, and Ehrenberg." (p. 4.) 



'* 28. The power of infusorial organization is instinctively shown 

 by the strong chewing apparatus with teeth which they possess, and 

 their exhibition likewise of a complete mental activity." (p. 7.) 



A tap or two with the editorial hammer would, we think, have 

 shown Mr. Pritchard that these two blocks are very much cracked 

 and quite unfit for his purpose. In fact, the former statement is 

 formally repudiated at pp. 61 and 177 of his own work. 



"Ih almost all ages of the world there has been evinced a restless 

 desire within us to pry into the nature or principle of life, and the 

 precise conditions on which it is retained ; and notwithstanding that 

 our bodies, its present abiding-place^ are confessedly frail and perish- 

 able, the unravelling of an invisible and immaterial agent has been 

 sought for by a reference to them." (p. 26.) 



We quite agree with the author, that those who have been trying 

 ^^ to unravel an invisible and immaterial agent ^^ might have been 

 better employed. The occupations of Sisyphus and the Danaides 

 were encouraging in comparison. 



Mr. Pritchard tells us in the preface that the work has been pre- 

 pared in conjunction with Mr. Arlidge. There is internal evidence 

 enough indeed, without this assurance, to show that two heads have 

 been employed upon it. It is no business of ours to draw invidious 

 comparisons, but as we have given a Specimen of the productions of 

 the one head, we must in justice lay before the reader a more cre- 

 ditable sample, evidently the work of the other. 



*' It would be but an exercise of the imagination to seek after re- 

 semblances between the majority of the Infusoria and higher animals ; 

 the resemblances could be but fanciful, existing only in external form. 

 In studying the Infusoria, the mind should be unbiassed by a know- 

 ledge of the organization of the higher animals ; we ought not to set 

 out with the assumption, that such living atoms must be furnished 

 with the organs of superior existences, and then indulge the imagina- 

 tion by accommodating appearances observed to our preconceived 

 notions ; but we should rather endeavour to learn under what simple 

 conditions and contrivances animal life can be manifested and con- 

 tinued." (p. 60.) 



