36 GENERAL HISTORY OF 



Dr. E. has foiindcd the subdivision of the class into families, as given 

 in Part III. of this work. 



Anxious to lay before the reader an impartial statement of this 

 question, I shall, before proceeding with any general remarks on the 

 Polygastrica, introduce here translations of the observations of a most 

 distinguished German botanist, and likewise those of a celebrated 

 French natiu^alist, wliile those of other naturalists relating to par- 

 ticular families, are inserted under those divisions. 



Prof. P. J. Meyen writes : — " All naturalists are aware that 

 Gleichen, in 1781, tried to make certain Infusoria eat carmine, and 

 observed next day that they had several large red granules in the 

 interior of their bodies. He thence concluded that they had swallowed 

 the colouring matter. He likewise noticed that these coloured 

 granules afterwards made their escape by another opening. Gleichen 

 has figured these red granules very accurately ; each of them is in 

 the centre of a particular circle, the nature of which he does not 

 explain. At a later period, M. Ehi-enberg made the same remark, 

 and he thence concludes that the Infusoria have several stomachs, 

 which, in one section, are destitute of an intestinal canal, while in 

 others they not only possess canals, by which they commiinicate with 

 each other, but lateral appendages, which besides terminate in a 

 coceum. In consequence of these discoveries, these Infusoria were 

 designated by the name of Polygastric animals. M Ehi-enberg be- 

 lieves that he has proved that their stomachs are filled one after 

 another, and he has figured, more or less completely, the intestines 

 which fonn the commvmication between the different stomachs. 



" Many observers have abeady questioned these assertions of 

 M. Ehi'cnberg (see the memoir of M. Dujardin, on this subject, in 

 the tenth volume of the Annates des Sciences Naturelles). For my 

 o-RTi part, I never admitted them, because, in the first place, I never 

 could see the intestines which form the communication between the 

 stomachs, and likewise because I have observed, many years since, 

 that these supposed stomachs were moving in the interior of the 

 body of many species with great rapidity, in the same manner as 

 the granules which circulate in the joints of the Chara. I have 

 often seen Vorticella with nine or ten large globules of indigo in the 

 belly, which always moved round a centre, and thus showed, in the 



