Prof. Ehrenherg'i Researches on the Infusoria. 99 



multitude is truly amazing. Every green leaf swarms with in- 

 habitants. The bodies of other animals are in a manner filled 

 with intestine life. The seas, lakes, marshes, and rivers of our 

 planet teem with numberless living creatures. Without adding 

 to these the gradations which Mr Locke has shewn to be more 

 than probable in the intellectual world, we might almost con- 

 clude that the strength of creative energy has been more lavishly 

 expended upon the animate than upon the inanimate world ; and 

 that notwithstanding the immense system of bodies into which 

 Nature has so curiously wrought the mass of dead matter, and 

 the several relations which these bear to each other, there is 

 something still more wonderful in contemplating the world of 

 life with which every part of the universe is furnished. 



Explanation of Plate IV. 



Fig. 1. Monas termo, Miiller, viewed with a power of 800. Its dimensions 

 by the glass micrometer, were from jj^^^ to j^'g^ of a line. Even in 

 this minute creature, when treated with infusion of indigo, can be per- 

 ceived distinctly, in the hinder part of the body, from four to six blue 

 points, which the analogy of the larger infusoria leaves no doubt to be 

 as many digestive sacs. The smaller end, or fore part of the animal, 

 always appears perfectly transparent. About 500 millions of these 

 animalcules may be calculated to exist in a single drop. 



Fig. 2. Monas atomics, Miiller, magnified 380 times. Its real dimensions are 

 about 5 Is'". In this species the circumscribed cavities, filled with 

 colouring matter, are equally distinct. In the midst of these are of- 

 ten seen others, of exactly the same form, but quite transparent, of 

 which Miiller made a separate species, M. lens. The M. atomus has 

 often a transverse fissure or contraction — the commencement of a gem- 

 miparous propagation. 



Fig. 3. The Leucophrys patula, Ehr., Trichoda pat. Miiller, magnified 380 

 times. This beautiful animal is remarkably characterized by the sin- 

 gular form of its intestinal canal, and by the innumerable ciliae with 

 which its body is everywhere beset. Many of the sacs, caeca, or sto- 

 machs, which exist in greater or less numbers in the interior of the 

 animal, resemble very closely the ova of some of the Infusoria Rotato~ 

 ria ; but their real nature appears on the exhibition of coloured infu- 

 sion, for, from being perfectly transparent, and with a sort of granular 

 aspect, they become beautifully coloured, although no canal of com- 

 munication is visible between them and the main tube, a designates 

 the orifice of the anus, distinguished by the discharge of coloured mat- 

 ter in large irregularly coherent masses. 



Fig. 4. The intestine of the Leucophrys patula, as it appears during the varied 



g2 



