258 



BREEDING 



amusement in quoting with derision the statement which someone is 

 supjjosed to have made, that man arose from the jelly-fish by a series of 

 developmental changes occupying ages. Most probably no one has been 

 asked to believe in such an origin of the human race; but it may be 

 worth while to think for a moment on the facts which have just been 

 recorded, about which there is no dispute, all tending to prove that an 

 organism much less advanced in the scale of creation than a jelly-fish, 

 being, indeed, only a speck of germinal matter, is capable of evolving a 



man. 



The mammalian ovum is in 

 reality a minute speck of animal 

 matter having no individuality, a 

 simple cell formed l)y investing 

 membrane surroundino; an albumi- 

 nous mass, having a diameter of 

 less than the x^ooth of an inch, 

 containing a germinal vesicle and 

 a germinal s]3ot only ^'isible under 

 the highest powers of the micro- 

 scope. It is but rec|uired that 

 the minute germ in the egg, or 

 ovulum as it may more appro- 

 priately be called, should be fer- 

 tilized by contact with the male 

 sperm to ensure the development 

 of a man, or a much larger mam- 

 mal, not during the course of ages, but in a few months. If it could 

 be demonstrated that the higher mammalian is the outcome of incon- 

 ceivably prolonged transformations in the organism of the jelly-fish, it 

 is difficult to understand that there would be any greater ground for 

 wonder than should naturally be, at the contemplation of the meta- 

 morphosis of the mammalian ovum, ending in the evolution of the highest 

 animal in creation. 



Multiplication of the species in the minute, lowly -organized beings 

 which may be described as constituting the dawn of life, is effected by 

 processes which may be termed marvellous in their extreme sim23licity. 



Taking the amoeba for an example, we have a mere film of trans- 

 parent germinal, i.e. living, matter, capable of movement without any 

 discernible organs of locomotion, breathing without any respiratory 

 apparatus, and taking necessary nutriment and growing thereby without 

 a trace of digestive organs. Multiplication of these primitive forms of 



Fig. 543. — Ex.auiples of I\Iulti])lic"atiun by Division 



and by Budding 



1. Amoeba; /), point of separation. 2. Cliilodon ciicul- 



lulus; successive stages of division. 3. Hydra fusca ; 



«, very young buds; &, older buds at different stages. 



