I 



APPENDIX. 321 



tail ; and the new tail will grow from the anterior part of the 

 trunk*." 



This short review of the evidence is sufficient to show that physi- 

 ologists were not too credulous when they received the facts into 

 their creed ; nor did any future experiments cast doubt over them, 

 although the conclusions drawn were occasionally modified to con- 

 form to the results of different observers, arising, probably, from a 

 difference in the species operated upon. Hence Professor Owen 

 properly introduced the facts into his '* Lectures," without any 

 expression of disbelief f — a proceeding which drew down the follow- 

 ing anathema : — " On the authority of hundreds of observations 

 laboriously repeated at every season of the year, the author of this 

 Report (Dr. Thomas Williams) can declare with deliberate firmness, 

 that there is not one word of truth in the above statement. It is 

 because accounts so fabulous have been rendered 'respectable' by 

 the fact that Professor Owen has thrown over them the segis of his 

 great authority, that they demand a contradiction which may dis- 

 please by the strength of the language in which it is given;};." Dis- 

 please ! It is, with all due deference, the language of a froward 

 tongue, and unlike that with which a prudent man dealeth with 

 knowledge. If the negative experiments of one individual were to 

 invalidate and remove the facts established by many positive experi- 

 ments, there could be no advances made in science ; and it is very 

 singular that Dr. Williams never found a worm that had evidently 

 had a portion of its body renewed — the original portion having been 

 lost by some accident. Specimens of this kind are not rare§. 

 Morren has figured such a one in his work (tab. i. fig. 3), where all 

 the portion posterior to the clitellus has been reproduced. And 

 Dr. Williams's denial has called forth additional corroboration of the 

 fact. At a meeting of the Linnean Society, November 1, 1853, Mr. 

 Newport "exhibited three specimens of earthworms, which have 

 had parts of their bodies reproduced." " One of the specimens ex- 

 hibited was still living, the others were preserved in spirit. In each 

 of them more than one-third of the posterior division of the body 

 had been restored. The new parts in all were much smaller in dia- 

 meter, and the segments much shorter than in the original anterior 

 portion of the body 1| ." 



In reference to the power which the Lumbrici have of reproducing 

 amputated portions of the body, M. Ant. Duges says : — Valmont de 



* Tracts on the Natural History of Animals and Vegetables, translated from the 

 original of the Abbe Spallanzani, by John G. Dalyell. — Vol. i. p. Ixix. 



t Lectures on the Comparative Anatomy and Physiology of the Invertebrate 

 Animals, p. 143. Lond. 1843. 



J Report on the British Annelida, p. 247, in the Rep. Brit. Assoc, for 1851. 



§ " It is no uncommon thing, at this season of the year (autumn ?), to find 

 earthworms which have had a large portion of the body restored, as is easily seen 

 by the much lighter colour, more delicate texture, and smaller dimensions of the 

 new parts, as compared with the original parts of the animal.'' — Newport in Ann. 

 ^ Mag. Nat. Hist. ser. 2. xiii. p. 423. 



II Ann. & Mag. Nat, Hist. loc. cit. Professor Jones says, " Careful experiments, 

 &c." p. 211. See also Loudon's Card. Magazine, xvii. p. 215 (1841). 



Y 



