15 



voted study to the minute and microscopic infusorial 

 animals, enabled Ehrenberg to discover the most 

 wonderful and surprising features in the external and 

 internal anatomy of their systems. Imperceptible to 

 the unaided vision, yet peopling with myriads the 

 liquid drop of water and inhabiting almost every form 

 of matter, we were ignorant of the extent of their ac- 

 tive being, until the microscope revealed both their 

 existence and economy. With motions as rapid as 

 thought, limbs of the most exquisite form and propor- 

 tions anomalous to every other body, which we see 

 around us, they possess all the necessary functions 

 of animated beings and astonish us with the compli- 

 cated harmony of their structure.* In the examina- 

 tion of a single insect, Lyonnet employed several 

 years, and yet left for farther research, much to com- 

 plete the history of that single individual species, in 

 the larva of the Cossus ligniperda. FABR : he counted 

 above 4000 muscular bands, precisely adapted to the 

 performance of the required effects. To support life 

 and perform all the functions necessary to an insect 

 not exceeding an inch in length M. Straus enumer- 

 ated 872 organs, composed of tracheae, muscles, nerves 

 and scale-like plates : " a spectacle," says Cuvier, 

 " altogether transporting by its delicacy and regular- 

 ity. Even to the fine assortments of its colors, every 

 thing seems as if made on purpose to please the eye 

 of man, which now perhaps looked upon it for the first 



* Ehrenberg has proved the existence of Monads, which are not larger 

 than the 24.000th of an inch. He computes that 500,000,000 of these micro- 

 scopic animals may be contained in the space of a single drop of water ; a 

 number equalling the amount of human beings existing on the surface of th 

 globe. Roget's Bridgewatcr Treatise. Vol. I. Introduction p. 25. 



