TUE BAY OF BISCAY. 243 



In the animal and the plant the bud is living, 

 because it is simply a portion of its parent. Again, 

 in the animal or plant the bulbil is living, because 

 when separated from its parent it grows and is de- 

 veloped. The seed and the fertilised egg are equally 

 living, although both may for a more or less con- 

 siderable length of time present all the appearances 

 of inert matter. Is the egg which we keep for house- 

 hold purposes dead? By no means, for if it were 

 placed under a hen that was sitting it would give 

 birth to a chick. Were the cereals which were 

 found in the tombs of Thebes dead? By no means, 

 for when they were thrown into the earth they ger- 

 minated and produced plants similar to the progeni- 

 tors which had disappeared from the face of earth 

 for thirty or forty centuries. In both cases life was 

 in a latent condition, and required for its manifesta- 

 tion a concurrence of favourable circumstances. 



The observations which I have made on the Her- 

 mellas throw considerable light upon some of the 

 difficult points to which I have already reverted. 



On leaving the body of its mother the egg of the 

 Ilermella is composed like all perfect eggs of four 

 distinct parts, that is to say, of a yolk or vitellus, a 

 germinal vesicle or vesicle of Purkinje, placed in 

 the interior of the yolk, a germinal spot enclosed 

 within the vesicle, and finally of a very fine membrane 

 which envelopes the whole.* The germinal spot and 

 vesicle are two minute transparent globules, while the 



* In the eggs of birds, the white or albumen and the shell are 

 merely accessory parts, which are formed in the oviduct after the 

 actual egg has left the ovary. 



