Scientific Intelligence. — Zoology. 209 



stance is put into circumstances which favour putresence, there 

 is observed after a certain time, which varies according to tem- 

 perature and moisture of the atmosphere, the formation therein 

 of a number oi animalcules ; and that before any insipid or musty 

 smell (marking the first period of the putrid fermentation) is per- 

 ceptible ; and even before the liquid presents any sign of an acid 

 or alkaline state. These animalcules, which at first have the 

 shape of monades, and then assume that of vibrios^ derive their 

 nourishment from the substance in which they are developed, 

 and multiply in it with the greatest rapidity. 2d, At a more 

 advanced period^ when the liquid reddens litmus paper, the 

 microscope shews us animalcules in immense numbers, and espe. 

 cially upon the brownish pellicle with which the surface of the 

 liquid is covered. A considerable number of crystals are also 

 seen to be mixed with the animalcules ; and still there is no 

 kind of unpleasant odour. 8d, Somewhat later the fluid is 

 observed to be more and more charged with detached particles 

 of the animal substance which had been plunged into it : all 

 these particles are formed of agglomerated animalcules attached 

 to some fragments of the decomposing tissue, and this is the 

 first epoch at which an odour begins to exist, faint at first, but 

 speedily putrid. 4th, In the fourth and last period the animal- 

 cules shew themselves in tens of thousands, and the time arrives 

 in which the whole mass becomes completely organized, and 

 consists of nothing else than these elementary beings. By this 

 time the liquid has become alkaline, and is extremely fetid. — • 

 Comptes Rendus, 19 Mars 1838. 



13. Analogy between the organic structure and red colour of 

 the ghbides in the blood of animals^ and of those red vegetable 

 globides named Protococcus kermesinus. — In a memoir read 

 by M. Turpin to the Academy of Sciences, on globules in 

 animal fluids, we find the following observations: — What ha^ 

 just been stated regarding the presence of smaller red globules 

 in the globules of the blood, is perfectly explained by the 

 very analogous structure of those small red vegetables, globu- 

 lous and vesicular, so generally distributed throughout nature^ 

 and which often tinge with a blood-red colour, the surface of 

 calcareous rocks — the surface of water, both fresh and salt- 

 snow and ice — the crystals of sea-salt — and, finally, as we pro* 



VOL. XXV. NO. XLIX. JULY 1838. O 



