TRANSMIGRATIONS AND METAMORPHOSES. 195 



not to say their swaddling-clothes, are torn to pieces by 

 the gastric juice, and at the end of their stage they go 

 and lodge in larger apartments, more appropriate to 

 their new wants. The time of their celibacy is passed, 

 and a numerous progeny, under the form of eggs, is 

 prepared. In this condition they fulfil their last 

 mission ; and if their mother, the sporocyst, knew only 

 the joys of agamous maternity, the cercaria which has 

 just become a distome appreciates all the sweetness of 

 sexual maternity. 



The distome thus reaches the termination of its voy- 

 age and of its evolutions ; it lays its eggs in the midst 

 of the feces of its host, and millions of animalculse 

 watch for the new brood, w4iile others w^ait for the visit 

 of the ciliated generations. The daughter distome thus 

 differs completely from her mother sporocyst, but she 

 resembles her grandmother who has lived in the same 

 manner as herself. Thus we have animals free and 

 vagabond when they leave the egg, and which swim 

 vigorously like infusoria without depending on others. 

 But the end of their life approaches, they strip them- 

 selves of their ciliated mantle, and being again closely 

 swathed up before they die, they seek the hospitality of 

 a mollusc and give birth to their numerous progeny. 



We have therefore animals whose little ones in 

 swaddling clothes live at first at liberty, and seek for 

 assistance when the moment for thinking of a family 

 approaches. The descendants lead, like their parents, a 

 wandering life ; and as their mother threw off her ciliated 

 cloak, so they abandon their oar-like tail, to think in 

 their tm'n of family cares. 



To sum up all, there are in the life circle of a dis- 



