DORMANT VITALITY. 415 



such cases prevails. The animal and the plant are equally 

 capable of reproducing in the ordinary way, as well as 

 by cuttings, and the long period during which vitality may 

 be entirely dormant in plant life, as well as in some 

 animals, bears a very close analogy. In plants we have 

 the example of the mummy wheat, representing thousands 

 of years of dormant life ; but it is also found, not only 

 that seeds may be kept for many years without injury 

 to their vegetating power, but that even the pollen or 

 yellow dust from the anthers of flowers may be kept for 

 years, and afterwards used in hybridizing and in pro- 

 ducing seed. While in animal life, that of the toad, which 

 we have already referred to, might be supplemented by 

 many instances of the prolonged dormancy of eggs or 

 ova, and also by the remarkable experiments by Spallan- 

 zani, Davaine, Gavarret, and others with the Tardigrades 

 and Rotifera, or Wheel Animalculae, which it has been 

 found can be dried and moistened, or killed and revived 

 as it was at one time considered, and the experiment 

 repeated with them many times after intervals of years. 

 At one time it was supposed these animalcule could bear 

 to be perfectly desiccated, but more careful observation 

 has shown that, unless a small essential quantity of 

 moisture remains in them, replacing them in water will 

 fail to restore their vitality. Of course their vitality 

 is never actually gone, it is merely in a state of suspen- 

 sion or dormancy. 



But these remarks are introduced less because they are 

 conclusions, than because they form the threshold, and 

 merely the threshold, of an exceedingly great and interest- 

 ing and, at the same time, utterly incomprehensible sub- 

 ject the great life chain of reality. Take up any link 

 of this wonderful subject and examine it carefully, and we 

 will find that, instead of being within the range of intelli- 

 gible and natural laws, we are altogether thrown out of 



