Miscellaneous. 425 
after numerous observations, and having verified them in several other 
species of insects, are still less astonishing than those which charac- 
terize the pathological state of the same blood. 
The blood of the worms when affected with other maladies than 
muscardine, contains fewer globules in proportion to the proximity of 
the death of the animal. But the appearance of the blood explains 
the disappearance of the globules. At first, those found in it in 
small numbers are all mature, or have even already discharged their 
granules externally ; whilst globules in progress of development are 
entirely absent, but in their place are observed corpuscles in every 
respect resembling the granules of the nucleus of the mature globules. 
These corpuscles, which are all alike, move with rapidity, although 
there appears to be no cause for their motion, which moreover pre- 
sents all the characters of voluntary motion. 
M. Guérin, by numerous observations which have been verified by 
other persons, has acquired the conviction that these corpuscles are 
the granules which have escaped from the nucleus of the globules 
existing in the blood. These granules under the influence of the 
morbid state have not been able to form new globules, and then 
enter upon a kind of independent vitality which begins the disorga- 
nization of the diseased individual by that of its nutritive fluid. We 
can now understand the absence of the globules in the earliest periods 
of their development, and the constantly greater diminution of the glo- 
bules in proportion as the animal approaches its end; it is a source 
which flows off without renovation. M. Guérin-Meneville gives the 
name of Hematozoides to the animals thus developed in the diseased 
blood. He has also met with them in other insects ; and what is still 
more curious, is that he has succeeded in producing them at pleasure 
in healthy insects, by causing them to endure hunger for some days ; 
so that, at least in insects, depauperization of the blood from the action 
of debilitating causes of any kind is caused by the inaptitude of the 
existing nucleolar granules to form new ones. This result undoubtedly 
deserves great attention. 
But muscardine has presented to M. Guérin some facts of a still 
more remarkable character. In it, whether the worm has acquired 
the disease naturally, or some sporules of Botrytis bossiana which 
produces muscardine have been placed upon its body with the pomt 
of a needle, even before the morbid condition is announced by any 
external signs, the blood begins to exhibit the heematozoids; they 
increase every hour, and intermixed with them very short navicular 
bodies are soon seen, but which speedily become developed, even 
under the mere influence of moisture into the thallus or root of the 
muscardic Botrytis. At this period of the disease, M. Guérin has 
seen one of the most curious phenomena in organic nature, and one 
which bears upon several long-debated questions ; he has seen the 
Hematozoides, those animated corpuscles which originated from the 
nucleolar granules, gradually become transformed into the thallus of 
the Botrytis. They acquire a more elongated form, the motion still 
existing ; then when they have acquired a further state of elongation, 
the motion ceases, and the animate matter is metamorphosed into 
vegetable matter, which however continues to grow more and more. 
