STUDIES IN ANIMAL LIFE. 69 



can not be replaced mechanically — ^it can only be 

 replaced by vital processes. Every one who has 

 made microscopic preparations must be aware that 

 when once a tissue is desiccated, it is spoiled; it 

 will not recover its form and properties on the ap- 

 plication of water, because the water was not orig- 

 inally worked into the web by a mere process of 

 imbibition — like water in a sponge — ^but by a molec- 

 ular process of assimilation, like albumen in a mus- 

 cle. Therefore I say that desiccation is necessarily 

 death, and the Eotifer which revives can not have 

 been desiccated. This being granted, we have only 

 ^ ask, What prevents the Eotifer from becoming 

 completely dried? Experiment shows that it is the 

 presence of dirt or moss which does this. The 

 whole marvel of the Eotifer's resuscitation, there- 

 fore, amounts to this : that if the water in which it 

 lives be evaporated, the animal passes into a state 

 of suspended animation, and remains so as long as 

 its own water is protected from evaporation. 



I am aware that this is not easily to be reconciled 

 with M. Doy^re's experiment, since the application 

 of a temperature so high as 300° Fahrenheit (nearly 

 a hundred degrees above boiling water) must, one 

 would imagine, have completely desiccated the ani- 

 mals, in spite of any amount of protecting dirt. It 

 is possible that M. Doy^re may have mistaken that 

 previously -noticed swelling up of the bodies, on the 

 application of water, for a return to vital activity. 

 If not, I am at a loss to explain the contradiction ; 



