BRACHYURI. 173 



subsisted eighty-six days exuviation followed once more, on the 23d of 

 June. 



What was now disclosed ? A new animal, considerably larger than 

 the old, of the purest and most delicate white, with the whole limbs en- 

 tire, symmetrical, and in beautiful perfection. 



I gazed on the object, — I could not behold it without renewed ad- 

 miration of Nature's energies in producing her appointed works, in all 

 their predetermined harmonious perfection. — Plate XXXIX., lig. 8. 



This exuviation plainly proved, in confirmation of other examples, 

 that no protrusion announcing the generation of defective organs issues 

 from the stumps of the shell remaining on mutilation. Therefore re- 

 generations are not by means of additions. 



Yet there are some perplexing facts. If each of the new Umbs be 

 not withdrawn from a sheath, as from an old limb, according to com- 

 mon belief, how are the whole arranged with the body in the subsisting 

 shell before exuviation ? Can it be otherwise than folding over the 

 breast ? — In my opinion it cannot. Certainly no portion of the originat- 

 ing organ protrudes from the stump of the defective member. Besides, 

 how could the bulging sheU of the new claws be drawn through the nar- 

 row channels, and contracted joints of the old ? On the whole, therefore, 

 there seems no other satisfactory explanation than by admitting the 

 concentration of the new animal and its organs within the original 

 shell. 



But how or from whence are the new integuments derived ; how are 

 they interposed so as to include the flesh of the limbs, or to contain the 

 internal parts ? I believe that skin is allowed to be derived from fleshy 

 parts, and although the bulk of the stomach is such that it might afibrd 

 some lesser secretion to invest the internal organization, the substance of 

 the limbs seems to have wasted almost entirely away. Content with 

 relating obvious facts, I must leave the solution of such abstruse 

 questions to greater physiologists. 



Whatever is the mode by which it is operated, if we admit that the 

 external parts of the creature nasciturus, that about to be produced, are 

 generated, we are reUeved of all embarrassment in accounting for the re- 



