NATURE OF PLANARI^E 



tion ; while the test of experiment unfolds 

 latent phenomena, which the utmost efforts 

 of human ingenuity find it difficult to illus- 

 trate. Certain animals, though liable to 

 perish by simple evaporation of their sur- 

 rounding fluid, can, in other circumstances, 

 endure privations apparently inconsistent 

 with life itself. What prove deadly wounds* 

 to the majority of the creation, only serve 

 to awaken in them the active principle of 

 an inexhaustible reproductive power. The 

 perpetuation of their race is effected by 

 means the most remote from those that 

 usually regulate the origin of animated ex- 

 istence. A shapeless fragment is disjoin- 

 ed from the body of the parent ; it remains 

 in quiescence more resembling the state of 

 death : but new organs are gradually evol- 

 ved motion is resumed and all the qua- 

 lities successively displayed which belong- 

 ed to the primitive whole. 



Such are some of the admirable preroga- 

 tives conferred on the creatures about to be 

 described. Let us not anticipate them 



