REVIEWS. 779 
terially enhanced. After what has gone before, we hardly need 
say, that the Hand-list is simply indispensable to the working or- 
nithologist.— E. C. 
OrıcrN or Lowest Organisms.*—The author’s aim in this and 
other writings is to prove that while some monads (Bacteria) orig- 
inate by subdivision of preéxisting individuals (homogenesis), 
others originate de novo, just as crystals originate by certain chem- 
ical laws. He thus goes still farther than those advocates of 
spontaneous generation who believe that Bacteria originate by the 
transformation of living matter (heterogenesis). For this new 
mode of spontaneous generation he proposes the term * Archebio- 
sis.” 
We should premise that Bacteria are monads, the lowest and 
most minute organized beings, forming mere points of organized 
matter ; they are highly refractive spherical bodies, and move with 
considerable activity. Torule are very similar bodies and are 
the germs of the yeast fungus. Professor Bastian has observed 
the ordinary reproduction by fission “ most plainly when a few 
Bacteria have been enclosed in a single drop of fluid, pressed into 
a very thin stratum, in a ‘live box’ kept at a temperature of 
about 90° Fahr. by resting on one of Stricker’s warm water cham- 
bers placed on the stage of the microscope. Under these condi- 
tions, I have seen a Bacterium of moderate size divide into two, 
and each of these into two others somewhat smaller, in the course 
of fifteen minutes.” These monas-like bodies, as is well known, de- 
velop into higher organisms. “It is a fact, however, admitted by 
many, and which any patient microscopist is capable of verifying 
for himself, that some Bacteria do develop into Leptothrix fila- 
ments, and that these are capable of passing into a dissepimated 
mycelial structure of larger size and undoubtedly fungus nature 
—from which, fructification of various kinds may be produced. 
Some Bacteria may therefore develop into some fungi, just as cer- 
tainly as Torule may develop into some other fungi, or just as 
surely as some multiplying gonidia may develop into lichens. 
That some Bacteria are produced from preéxisting Bacteria, just 
as some Torule are derived from preéxisting Torule, may, it is 
*The Mode of Origin of Lowest Organisms: including a discussion of the experi- 
ments of M. Pasteur, and a reply to some statements by Professors Huxley and Tyn- 
dall. By H. Charlton Bastian, London and N. York. Macmillan & Co. 1871. 12mo. pp. 
109, with two cuts. $1.25. 
