524 THE REPRODUCTIVE FUNCTIONS. 



selves always into sixteen parts. This subdivision 

 of the Gonium begins in the interior of the parent 

 animalcule, and is completed within the external, 

 or tegumentary membrane, long before the con- 

 tained young are liberated by the rupture of that 

 membrane ; so that there is a certain period when 

 the appearance presented is that of an aggregate of 

 sixteen individual animalcules enclosed in a com- 

 mon and perfectly transparent envelope. 



Each animalcule, thus formed by the subdivision 

 of its predecessor, soon grows to the size which 

 again determines a further spontaneous subdivision 

 into two other animalcules ; these, in course of time, 

 themselves undergo the same process, and so on, to 

 an indelEinite extent. The most singular circum- 

 stance attending this mode of multiplication is that 

 it is impossible to pronounce which of the new indi- 

 viduals thus formed out of a single one should be 

 regarded as the parent, and which as the offspring; 

 for they are both of equal size. Unless, therefore, 

 we consider the separation of the parts of the 

 parent animal to constitute the close of its indi- 

 vidual existence, we must recognise an unbroken 

 continuity in the vitality of the animal, thus trans- 

 mitted in perpetuity from the original stem, through- 

 out all succeeding generations. This, however, is 

 one of those metaphysical subtleties for which the 

 subject of reproduction affords abundant scope, but 

 which it would be foreign to the object of this work 

 to discuss. 



A mode of multiplication referable to this head 

 occurs in the polypi of the genus Campanulariay* 



* C/?/<ie of Lamouroux. 



