REPAIRS AND REGENERATION 101 



clear that this lowly, or comparatively lowly, form 

 of animal life has powers of regenerating itself 

 which are not inferior to those presented by plants. 



The second experimenter of whom mention was 

 made above was Spallanzani, whose name has 

 already come before us in connection with the 

 question of spontaneous generation. Spallanzani Earth- 

 experimented on earth-worms and showed that they worms 

 possessed powers like those of the hydra, though 

 not so extensive, for whilst the earth-worm, if 

 divided transversely, will produce a new head or a 

 new tail, if divided longitudinally it dies. 



But Spallanzani's most important experiments 

 were those made upon the salamander, for this is Salamander 

 a vertebrate animal, very much higher in the scale 

 of nature than those with which we have been 

 concerned up to now. He found that if the tail 

 was cut off a new one would grow which would 

 contain vertebrae new vertebrae, of course just 

 like those which had formed the skeleton of the 

 original appendage. Further he showed that if a 

 leg, or even all four legs were cut off, it or they 

 would grow again and that this process might be 

 repeated time after time. 



In one experiment which he carried out, he six 

 times removed all four legs and the tail from one 

 salamander during the three summer months. The 

 unwearied animal reconstructed itself on each occa- 





