112 SKETCH OF THE INFUSORIA 



A Sketch of the Infusoria, op the Family Bacillaria, 

 AviTii some Account of the most interesting Species 



WHICH have been FOUND IN A RECENT OR FOSSIL StATE IN 



THE United States. By J. W. Bailey. 



Those organized beings which Ehrenberg has placed among 

 the Infusoria, in the family Bacillaria, present almost equal claims 

 on the attention of the zoologist, botanist, and geologist. Con- 

 taining, as this family does, those obscure organic bodies which 

 form, as it were, the connecting links between the animal and 

 vegetable Idngdoms, and which appear to possess characters be- 

 longing to both, the student of either zoology or botany must 

 examine them, and in fact the very simplicity of their structure 

 renders them peculiarly proper for the observation of many phe- 

 nomena of great physiological interest. 



The geologist must attend to them, for the discoveries of Kut- 

 zing, Fischer, and especially of Ehrenberg, have shown that 

 many of these minute bodies possess siliceous coverings, wliich 

 occur in vast abundance in the fossil state, and which form the 

 minutest, and yet not the least important nor least interesting, of 

 the series of " nature's medallions." 



Believing that some account of the structure, classification, 

 &c., of this family would be acceptable to many in this country, 

 and that figures of our most remarkable species would be of in- 

 terest to the students of this family, both in this country and in 

 Europe, I have devoted for some time past the very few leisure 

 hours at my command, to the preparation of the following sketch. 

 As an apology for the very imperfect state in which I now pre- 

 sent it, I must state that my knowledge of the labors of others is 

 necessarily very sfight, as it is almost impossible to procure in 

 this countiy any works relating to this branch of natural history. 

 Of the many European works which contain figures of these 

 obscure beings, scarcely one has been at my command, and as 

 no one in this country has previously studied this subject, I have 

 had to trust almost entirely to my own observations. 



