238 INSECT TRANSFORMATIONS. 



worms would naturally produce similar insects to theii? 

 parents ; whereas they are either oviparous, as Goetze 

 affirms, or, as Bremser thinks, ovo-viparous ;* both 

 agreeing that they are not transformed into flying in- 

 sects. Reaumur made the more plausible conjecture, 

 that they might be introduced by eating tench and 

 other fish, in which they are known to abound ;t but, 

 independently of their being destroyed by heat in 

 cooking, this has been subsequently disproved by ex- 

 periment ; for M. Deslonchamps says, that " when 

 animals are fed for some time on intestinal worms 

 {Entoozaria) alone, and then killed, they are not 

 found infested with these worms. "| Valisnieri and 

 Hartsocker suppose, without a shadow of proof, that 

 worms are transmitted from parents to children like 

 other hereditary disorders ; while the late M. Lamarck 

 refers their production to *' the march of nature in 

 the production of all living beings ! ''§ This indefinite 

 doctrine is also held by Geoft'roi St. Hilaire, Cuvier, 

 Blumenbach, and other distinguished living natural- 

 ists ; but we think it more philosophical and more 

 manly, in such obscure cases, at once to confess our 

 ignorance of the ways of nature, and to wait for further 

 observation, than to frame idle theories, supported 

 only by vague analogies and doubtful facts. 



It may not be unmteresting to mention, however, 

 that upwards of 1200 species of intestinal worms 

 have been discovered , and probably there may be 

 twice as many more of whose existence nothing 

 is yet known. Sixteen of these species have been 

 found in the human body ; the rest are peculiar to 

 other animals. II Some of the more singular species 



* Bremser, Uber Lebende Wiirmer in leb. Mensch, 



I Letter to Bonnet, CEuvres, vol. iil. p. 344. 



\ Diet. Classique, vol. viii. p. 589. 



§ Anim. sans Vertebres, vol. i. p. 15. 



|l Diet. Classique, vol. viii. p. 593. 



