72 STUDIES IN ANIMAL LIFE. 



[Since the foregoing remarks were in type, M. 

 Gavarret lias published {Annales des Sciences Natu- 

 relles, 1859, ^xi., p. 315) the account of his' experi- 

 ments on Eotifers and Tardigrades, in which he 

 found that after subjecting the moss to a desiccation 

 the most complete according to our present means, 

 the animals revived after twenty-four hours' immer- 

 sion of the moss in water. This result seems flatly 

 to contradict the result I arrived at, but only seems 

 to contradict it, for in my experiments the animals,^ 

 not the moss, were subjected to desiccation. Nev- 

 ertheless, I confess that my confidence was shaken 

 by experiments so precise, and performed by so dis- 

 tinguished an investigator, and I once more resumed 

 the experiments, feeling persuaded that the detec- 

 tion of the fallacy, wherever it might be, would be 

 well worth the trouble. The results of these con- 

 trolling experiments are all I can find room for 

 here : Whenever the animals were completely separated 

 from the dirt, they perished ; in two cases there was 

 a very little dirt — a mere film, so to speak — in the 

 watch-glass and glass cell, and this, slight as it was, 

 sufficed to protect two out of eight, and three out 

 often Eotifers, which revived on the second day; 

 the others did not revive even on the third day aft- 

 er their immersion. In one instance, a thin cover- 

 ing-glass was placed over the water on the slide, 

 and the evaporation of the water seemed complete, 

 yet this gla:6s cover sufficed to protect a Eotifer, 

 which revived in three hours. 



