^3^ ikNIMALCULA OF INFUSIONS^ U 



feveral of the produ6lions which botanifts clafs 

 among plants, may approach nearer to the mi- 

 neral than the vegetable ; at leafl they may be 

 the fhades between the two. Among thefe plants 

 probably are modes of multiplication and incre- 

 ment that have not the mofl diflant conneclion 

 with thofe of vegetables the beft known to us. 



XII. I am delighted, my dear Malpighi, that 

 you have confirmed M. de Sauffure's fmgular 

 difcovery concerning the mode in which many in- 

 fufion animalcula propagate, and which I have 

 publifhed in the fecond edition of La Palingencjie^ 

 p. 426, 427. Though the figures that accompany 

 your letters are only fimple fketches, they are fuffi- 

 cient to fhow that thofe animalcula, whofe propaga- 

 tion you have attended to, are of the clafs of polypi 

 ( I ). This article has given M. Trembley much 

 pleafure,and brought to his remembrance thecluf- 

 ter polypi, which he firft difcovered, and defcribed 

 fo well in his works, and of which I have faid 

 much in my three laft treatifes. Wrifberg has- 

 alfo feen thefe very minute polypi in infufionsy 

 and given good figures of them ; but he has not 

 obferved their mode of multiplication. Wher^ 

 one confiders the different figures we have of fe- 



minal 



(i) My obfervations on the propagation of animalcula 

 were only in their infancy at the time I communicated 

 ihem to M. Bonnet 



