g6 THE OCEAN WOELD. 



certainly not yet demonstrated. In short, the direct observations 

 made upon the theory of " primitive generation " are as yet wanting 

 in the necessary exactness ; those observers who profess to have 

 witnessed the sudden origin of the minutest of the Infusoria from 

 elementary substances have in all probability overlooked the presence 

 of very minute organic germs in or among those elementary bodies. 



Many of the Infusoria are subject to metamorphoses ; and it has 

 already been ascertained that certain species which have been con- 

 sidered as distinct are only transitional forms of the same species 

 depending on age. 



We know that it is common for insects to enclose themselves in 

 protecting envelopes, and to remain for whole months shut up in this 

 their retreat, to all appearance dead. Similar facts have been 

 observed in the Infusoria, and indeed is intimately connected with 

 their development. Some of them, previously to undergoing fission, 

 become coated with a secretion of gelatinous matter, which gradually 

 hardens so as to enclose the body in a " cyst." We have even seen 

 some of these beings surrounding strange bodies, as if in a mass of 

 jelly, forming a sort of living envelope around them. 



Certain species present, in relation to the tenacity of life, 

 phenomena which are only imperfectly known, but which will never 

 fail to excite the surprise and admiration of the naturalist. By drying 

 certain infusoria with care, it is found possible to suspend and in- 

 definitely prolong their life. Thus dried, these Infusoria may and 

 are without doubt carried to great distances, for even an indefinite 

 period of time, and then abandoned on some ledge of rock, on a 

 housetop, in the cleft of a wall, or under the capital of a column, lie 

 there undisturbed ; but let a drop of water approach it, and the 

 dormant being awakes immediately — the microscopic Lazarus springs 

 again into existence, feeds and multiplies as before, and its life, 

 suspended possibly for years, resumes its interrupted course ! 



Into what a world of reflection does not a revelation of this 

 mysterious property of a living creature plunge us ! 



The physiologist Miiller has noted another peculiarity in infusorial 

 life. Taese animalcules can lose a part of their bodies without being 

 destroyed ; the dead part disappears, and the individual, diminished 

 by one-half or reduced to a fourth of its former size, continues to 

 live as if nothing had happened. Miiller has observed an Infusorian 

 {Amphileptus meleagris) thus melt before his eyes until scarcely a 

 sixteenth part of its body remained. After its loss, this sixteenth 

 part of an animal continued to swim about without troubling itself as 

 toils diminished proportions. "The Infusoria," says Fredol, in "La 



