136 



INCREASE OF ANIMALCULES. 



INCREASE OF THE 

 GONIUM. 



character has become known. The foregoing sketch 

 will illustrate the increase described, and also show 

 the new animalcule, after gaining its freedom, in 

 three different forms. 



There is still another mode of reproduction by 

 division ; it occurs in animalcules which appear, as 

 the Gronium, to consist of a num- 

 ber of globules, (sixteen in one 

 species,) enclosed in a thin trans- 

 parent envelop ; the mass thus 

 compounded divides in this 

 species into four equal parts, 

 each part containing one large 

 and three smaller globules. After their separation 

 from each other, these parts swim freely about in 

 the water, and increase in the number of their con- 

 stituent globules, to undergo a fresh division. In 

 other species, the division is into still more nume- 

 rous portions. 



Some animalcules, it must be further remarked, 

 increase by division, by gemmules, and by eggs or 

 spawn. In the Kolpoda cucullus, Ehrenberg de- 

 tected most satisfactorily the latter mode, and he 

 describes the eggs, when excluded, as appearing in 

 the form of a delicate mass resembling network. 



No mode of reproduction, however, is more 

 astonishing than that of division, none so produc- 

 tive. It is wonderful when we consider that each 

 divided part has to assume all the organs of the 

 perfect being ; that these have therefore to become 



