108 THE OCEAN WORLD. 



wheat, producing the destructive disease called corn-cockle or purples. 

 They are filiform animals, extremely slender, without appreciable 

 organization, internal stomach, or apparent organs of locomotion. 

 They are the first animalcules which show themselves in any infusion 

 of organic matter. By using microscopes of the highest magnifying 

 power, traces of very thin, short lines can he perceived, either straight 

 or sinuous, the thickest of them not exceeding the thousandth part of 

 the fraction of an inch. They are contractile, and propagated by 

 spontaneous division, or fission. Among them some resemble right 

 lines, more or less distinctly articulated, and endowed with a very slow 

 movement ; these are Bacttridde. Others are flexuous and undulating, 

 and more or less lively ; these are true Vibrions. Others have the 

 body fashioned in the form of a corkscrew, turning unceasingly upon 

 themselves with great rapidity ; these are the Spirillidse, having an 

 oblong fusiform or filiform body, which undulates or turns spirally 

 upon itself. 



The Bacterium termo (Fig. 30) is the smallest of the Infusoria. It 

 is found, at the end of a short time, in all vegetable or animal infusions 



exposed to the air. It shows itself in infinite 

 ;/ ^ . numbers, forming swarms of animalcules, 



I {l ( n a ^ G^^*. which disappear as other species multiply 



11 * *""/ B ^^ss, in the liquid, to which animals it serves for 

 't \ * 



1 n * ** nourishment. When the infusion becomes 



too foetid for these new species to live in it, 



Fig. 30. Bacterium. The same, r 



termo (Muiierx magnified i n consequence of fermentation or putrefac- 



magnitied 600 times. 1600 times. J- . 



tion, the Bacterium termo reappears. This 



species was one of the first observed ; Leuwenhoek found it in the 

 white matter in the teeth and gums, which is called teeth tartar. It 

 is also found in the fluids of various animals which have 

 been affected by disease. 



The Wand-like Vibrion (Fig. 31) has the body trans- 

 parent, filiform, with long articulations, often appear- 

 ing as if broken at each connection. It moves very 

 slowly in the water. Leuwenhoek observed this second 



Fig. 31. Vibrion J 



baguette (Mailer), species pined to the first in the teeth tartar, and also 



magnified 300 . * ... . 



times. m a great number of organic infusions. " There is no 

 microscopic object," says Dujardin, " which excites the admiration of 

 the observer more vividly than the twisting spirillum (Fig. 32). He 



