230 RAMBLES OF A NATURALIST. 



stop to the rapid movements to which we have 

 already adverted. 



Led astray by these experiments, the first observers 

 looked upon these corpuscles in the light of true 

 animalcules, but a more profound investigation of 

 the subject has now given us more correct ideas 

 in regard to their true nature. These minute bodies 

 are produced by Special organs, in the same manner as 

 the simple granular cells, which are so abundant in the 

 fluids of living beings. They are to a certain degree 

 organs, but organs which are charged with the 

 accomplishment of their functions externally to the 

 animals from which they emanate, and which 

 for this purpose receive a certain share of vitality, 

 which enables them to move for some time very 

 nearly in the same manner as the tail of a lizard 

 that had been separated from the remainder of the 

 body. 



These corpuscles are the active and immediate 

 agents in the fertilisation of the eggs. To them is 

 entrusted, so to speak, the accomplishment of the 

 process by which the conservation and perpetuity of 

 all animal species are maintained. Anything that 

 arrests their movements and destroys their vitality 

 obviously prevents them from exerting the mysterious 

 power to which we have referred. Now in the Teredos, 

 this fertilising fluid is as it were emitted at random: 

 the organic particles disseminated throughout the 

 mass of the surrounding water are carried away by 

 the currents, and some of them thus make their way 

 into the branchiae of the females, where they meet 

 with the eggs which they vivify by contact. If we 



