Ii. SEMINAL VERMICULIs 13 
fembled vegetable feeds, from the many kinds of 
beings to which it gave exiftence. 
-Thefe facts afforded new light in illuftrating how 
erroneoufly Buffon had afcribed to feminal ver- 
miculi properties that belong to animalcula of 
infufions only. Let us collect the circumftances 
in a few words.—According to him, the vermi- 
culi, after a certain time, were deprived of their 
tails. He fhould have faid, the animalcula of 
infufions came in the place of the vermiculi, 
which were already dead and precipitated to the 
bottom of the liquid. He. was arrefted by their 
firft appearance, and took them for feminal ver- 
miculi deprived of the tail, which in truth they 
often yery much refemble-—When difengaged 
from the tail, he adds, they acquired much great- 
er activity. This was a neceflary confequence of 
the firft miftake. When the animalcula had 
come, their increafed velocity could not be un- 
obferved, fince they move with much greater 
rapidity than vermiculi; and the erroneous fup- 
pofition being admitted, Buffon had to relate, as 
he has done, the remainder of the phenomenon. 
He had to fpeak of the imaginary changes of 
the vermiculi, of their divifion and diminution, 
with the more confidence, as his opinions were 
confirmed by a repetition of his experiments, if 
not on all, at leaft on many fpecies of infufion 
animalcula in the femen. — 
I think 
