THE VOL VOX GLOBATOR. 11 



observers, the whole exterior globular mass was regarded as a 

 single animal, and the bursting of the globe, and consequent 

 escape of the contained globules, as its ordinary mode of increase. 

 Ehrcnberg, however, was the first to ascertain that the Volvos is 

 really a coniposite structure, made up of an association of or- 

 ganisms in every respect similar to each other ; but then he 

 made the mistake of regarding them as true animalcules, and 

 described them as being each possessed of an eye, a mouth, and 

 several stomachs. 



The truth is that the Volvos has now been ascertained to be a 

 composite vegetable structure closely allied to the Protococcus, 

 and that its growth and development, together with the production 

 of the contained globules, is, as in the case of the various forms of 

 that plant, due to the repeated self-division of its component cells. 

 It can hardly be said, however, that the discovery that the 

 Volvox is a plant rather than an animal at all diminishes the 

 wonderfulness of its structure and history ; for in whatever light 

 we may regard it, it is certainly one of the most extraordinary 

 organisms with which even the microscope has made us acquainted. 

 But there is another wonder to be added to its history even yet : 

 the Volvox, it appears, is sometimes found to be infested with 

 parasites ; and on one occasion a specimen was observed, in the 

 interior of which two minute Wheel Animalcules were distinctly 

 visible. No opening could be perceived by which they could 

 have found entrance, nor did there appear to be anything with- 

 in to impede their movements ; on the contrary, they swam about 

 as freely as fish in a glass globe, to which, indeed, they are said 

 to have had no faint resemblance. 



Mr. Pritchard, in his " History of Infusorial Animalcules," 

 stoutly contends for the animal nature of these beings, and ap- 

 propriately concludes his account of them with the remark, 

 " Who can behold these hollow living globes revolving and dis- 

 porting themselves in their native element, with as much liberty 

 and pleasure as the mightiest monsters of the deep, and not 

 exclaim with the Psalmist, ' How wonderful are thy works, 

 Lord ; sought out of all them that have pleasure therein ' ?" 



Nothing is more remarkable in connection with the Protoplnjta, 

 or simplest forms of plants, with which we arc now dealing, than 

 the extraordinary and altogether unplant-likc shapes which they 

 assume. This is sufficiently striking in the Volvox and its allies 



