THE ANNALS 



AND 



MAGAZINE OF NATURAL HISTORY, 



No. 59. JULY 1842. 



XXXVIII. — General Features ofChusan, with remarks on the 

 Flora and Fauna of that Island. By Theodore Cantor, 

 M.D., Bengal Medical Service, &c. 



[Continued from p. 278.] 



While engaged in examining and collecting objects of na- 

 tural history in China, microscopic zoology did not alto- 

 gether escape my attention. Sketches and notes were taken 

 as often as my scanty time would permit, with a view to ob- 

 tain some information about the geographical distribution of 

 these minute animal forms, the very existence of which would 

 have been a secret but for the revelation of the microscope. 

 Previous use of instruments enabled me to delineate faithfully 

 what I saw, and I have had the satisfaction to test the cor- 

 rectness of my sketches by comparing them after my return to 

 Calcutta with the beautiful plates of M. Ehrenberg. To attend 

 to anatomical structure, or the measurement of the animals 

 themselves, lay not in my plan ; partly because this branch 

 of zoology is not sufficiently familiar to me, but chiefly be- 

 cause the bustle of a camp-life is anything but calculated to 

 afford the otium indispensable to such studies. From com- 

 parison with M. Ehrenberg's great work upon Infusoria, it 

 would appear that most of the forms observed at the island of 

 Lantao, situated in the mouth of Canton river, and at Chusan, 

 also inhabit Europe *. A detailed list of the localities given by 

 Ehrenberg has been prefixed to those places where the Chi- 

 nese animalcules were found. 



The method I invariably followed in the examination was 

 this : I first took a sketch of the animalcules through single 

 lenses, of which my highest power was ^\jth of an inch, and 

 then examined the object through a compound of 210 linear, 

 when I nearly always found the sketch to correspond. Unless 

 the powers of the single lenses are added in the sketches, they 



* See Dr. Ehrenberg's reflections on the extensive diffusion of species 

 among the Infusoria and their insensibility to climatic variations. — Taylor's 

 Scientific Memoirs. Part X. — Ed. 



Ann, ^ Mag. N, Hist. VoLix, 2B 



