6 DELUSIONS DISPELLED. 



peculiar, Ehrenberg derived a name for the entire class of 

 organisms in which they obtained. But, unfortunately, the 

 ablest observers since then, using the most powerful microscopes, 

 have come to quite different conclusions with respect to the 

 nature of the internal clear spaces, and have to this day failed to 

 discover the assumed connecting canal. It is evident, indeed, 

 that no such structure exists, and the term Polygastrica, there- 

 fore, is totally inadmissible. More than this, however, many tribes 

 that were so designated are now known to be true plants, while 

 others still form the subject of debate between the botanist and 

 the zoologist ; and another large section have been ascertained 

 to be merely active germs, some of aquatic plants, others of 

 worms or various insects. It is not too much to say, therefore, 

 that by far the larger proportion of the organisms which Ehren- 

 berg placed amongst the Infusoria as Polygastric Animalcules, 

 are strictly referable to other and widely different groups ; whilo 

 in none of them is there to be seen that complicated and mar- 

 vellous digestive apparatus from which, the class, as a whole, 

 received its designation. 



The Infusoria, then, viewed as Ehrenberg regarded them 

 that is, as minute animals, and admitting of being arranged in 

 two well-defined and homogeneous groups are blown to the 

 four winds. The classification is altogether at fault. But the 

 various beings thus arbitrarily associated together exist none the 

 less ; and though they are in some respects, perhaps, a little less 

 marvellous than the spurious discoveries of former times had led 

 us to suppose, there is little need to surround them with ima- 

 ginary wonders, in ord*er to their commanding a deep and per- 

 manent interest. Nor is this at all the less true from our now 

 having to regard many of these minute organisms as belonging 

 rather to the vegetable than to the animal world. Plants or 

 animals, it matters little their extreme minuteness, the extra- 

 ordinary abundance in which they swarm around us, the variety, 

 and, in many cases, the great beauty of their structure, all con- 

 duce to render them objects of the greatest interest, and to make 

 the study of them one of the most attractive departments of 

 natural science. 



Let us then without caring much about classification mind- 

 ing only to keep in view the great leading distinctions which 

 recent research has established, look more in detail at the eco- 



