246 RAMBLES OP A NATURALIST. 



in the egg immediately after its appearance, are 

 entirely independent of fertilisation. The disappear- 

 ance of the germinal spot and vesicle, the oscillations 

 of the yolk and its cleavage, are, in the isolated 

 female element, so many signs of special activity, and 

 of a vitality which belongs to it. When these move- 

 ments cease, and when the egg becomes decomposed, 

 it is in reality dead. 



Thus the fertilising corpuscles, after separation 

 from the male, retain a certain amount of vitality. 

 In the same manner, on their separation from the 

 mother, the eggs possess a special and individual 

 life. Even in non-fertilised eggs, this vitality is 

 manifested by spontaneous and characteristic move- 

 ments, precisely the same as we observe in the 

 case of the male corpuscles. In the latter, all indi- 

 cations of vitality disappear in a comparatively short 

 time, and it is precisely the same in respect to non- 

 fertilised eggs. In the fertilised eggs, on the con- 

 trary, vital movements are prolonged, and result in 

 the complete organisation of a living being. The 

 contact of the egg with these 'corpuscles is not, there- 

 fore, to give or to re-awaken a life which is already 

 present in the egg, and which is manifested by ap- 

 preciable phenomena, but rather to regulate the ex- 

 ercise of this force and thus to secure its duration.* 



* Several naturalists have observed the movements to which we 

 refer in non-fertilised eggs, but pre-occupied with the idea that 

 the male organic corpuscles were necessary to vivify the germ, they 

 have ascribed these movements to incipient putrefaction. The 

 experiment which we have described must, however, completely 

 set this view at rest, for it is obvious that eggs, whose chemical 

 composition had begun to be affected, could not possibly be re- 



