TRANSMIGRATIONS AND METAMORPHOSES. 249 



worms in the lungs are viviparous, and embryos are 

 foimd in the midst of the intestine of the same animal 

 which gives lodging to the female. These same worms, 

 proceeding from an hermaphrodite parent, or from par- 

 thogenetic females, live at liberty, and not parasitically 

 in damp earth or in a decomposed body, and differ from 

 their parents in size as well as in sexual organs. They 

 all become either male or female, and consequently their 

 fecundity is dependent upon copulation. Their parents 

 could all multiply without it, but they cannot. The 

 females alone produce a new generation. 



A worm known by the name of Vibrio anguillula lives 

 in grains of corn while still green, and multiplies there 

 to a prodigious extent; it is this which causes the 

 disease known by the name of smut. The grains grow 

 hard, and enclose nothing but little dried worms, which 

 remain thus without apparent life, yet without dying, 

 until they are moistened, when they become damp, 

 the tissues swell, the organs resume their natural 

 appearance, and the functions are restored at the end of 

 a few hours. 



In a grain of corn aiTected by smut, anguillulae 

 without distinct organs are found, which may be dried 

 and revived eighteen times in succession, according to 

 Mons. Duvaine, who thinks that these anguillulae, leaving 

 an infected grain, come out of theii* envelopes in a field 

 of corn, cling to the young stalks, and rise with them. 

 They begin to develop themselves in the rudimentary 

 flower of the corn, and acquire genital organs like 

 nematodes. Males and females are always found sepa- 

 rately in a grain of corn. 



The ermine lodges in its lungs and tracheal artery 



