150 FUNCTIONS AND INSTINCTS. 



rous. The species of Vibrio found in diseased 

 wheat by M. Bauer is oviparous, as is evident 

 from his observations and admirable figures. 

 Lamarck indeed regards them as having no 

 volition, as taking their food by absorption like 

 plants ; as being without any mouth, or internal 

 organ ; in a word, as transparent gelatinous 

 masses, whose motions are determined not by 

 their will, but by the action of the medium in 

 which they move. That they have neither head, 

 eyes, muscles, vessels, nerves, nor indeed any 

 particular determinable organ, whether for respi- 

 ration, generation, or even digestion. On account 

 of these supposed negative characters, they were 

 called by De Blainville, Agastria, or stomachless, 

 ^s having no intestines ; but Ehrenberg, who has 

 studied them in almost every climate, has dis- 

 covered, by keeping them in coloured waters, 

 they are not the simple animals that La- 

 and others supposed, and that almost all 

 have a mouth and digestive organs, and that num- 

 bers of them have many stomachs. Spallanzani, 

 and other writers that preceded Lamarck, had 

 observed that their motions evidently indicated 

 volition ; this appeared from their avoiding each 

 other and obstacles in their way ; from their 

 changing \heir direction and going faster or 

 slower as occasion required ; from their passing 

 suddenly from a state of rest to motion without 

 any external impulse ; from their darting eagerly 



