340 On a Confervoid State of Mucor davatus. 



disadvantages, thrive as fast, and seem as vigorous as those produced 

 by perfect and uncut polypes."* 



When such things were first announced — when to a httle worm the 

 attributes of angelic beings were assigned + — it is not wonderful that 

 the vulgar disbelieved, albeit credulity may be their besetting sin, 

 when even naturalists, familiar with all the miracles of the insect 

 world, were amazed and wist not what to do. " II faut" — exclaimed 

 Rea\imur — '* il faut porter la foi humaine plus loin qu'il n'est permis 

 a des hommes eclaires, pour le croire sur le premier temoignage de 

 celui qui le raconte, et assure I'avoir vu. Peut-on se resoudre a 

 croire qu'il y ait dans la nature des animaux qu'on multiplie en les 

 hachant, pour ainsi dire, par morceaux ?" :j: But this illustrious na- 

 turalist was himself the first to promulgate, and experimentally to 

 verify the discoveries of Abraham Trembley, which have been fully 

 confirmed by many subsequent inquirers, and are now made so familiar 

 to us by their admission into elementary works and treatises on na- 

 tural theology, that we read of them with little surprise and without 

 incredulousness. 



{To be continued.) 



V. — On a Cojifervoid Stale of Mucor davatus, Lk. By the Rev. 

 M. J. Berkeley, M. A. F. L. S. 



Though great advance has of late years been made, not only in 

 the study, but in the manner of studying cryptogamic plants, it is 

 plain from the pertinacious adherence of many botanists to their old 

 habits of looking rather to external and accidental, than to internal and 

 essential characters, that there is much room for improvement. In 

 consequence of this, mycology and other branches of cryptogamic 

 botany are still overloaded with a mass of anomalous productions, 



* Baker, lib. s. cit. 92, 93. 



t " Vital in every part, not as frail Man 



In entrails, heart or head, liver or veins, 



Cannot but by annihilating die ; 



Nor in their liquid texture mortal wound 



Receive, no more than can the fluid air : 



All heart they live, all head, all eye, all ear, 



— — — — and, as they please, 



They limb themselves, and colour, shape or size 



Assume, as likes them best." 



Milton. 

 \ Hist, des Insectes, vi. pref. 49. 



