192 METAMOKPHOSES OF MAN 



like organs, wkick are real suckers, are attacked to 

 various portions of its body ; if tken tke prey is 

 sufficiently weak to admit of being devoured upon the 

 spot, we can, with- tke aid of the microscope, see 

 tke granules passing from its body into tkat of tke 

 Podopkrya.* 



Tkis infusorian sometimes produces a great number 

 of small embryos, but at otkers it gives rise to a 

 single one, muck larger tkan itself, f Tke latter, at 

 tke period of birtk, is a little ovoid transparent body, 

 constricted at tke middle, and carrying at tkis 

 point a sort of girdle, wkick consists of several rows 

 of vibratile cilia. By means of tkis apparatus it swims 

 about in tke liquid, rapidly enougk at first; but 

 after a few minutes tkis wandering propensity 

 is lost. Tke larva arrests its movements now and 

 tken, as tkougk desirous of rest, and eventually 

 becomes permanently fixed. Its cilia, kencefortk 

 useless, disappear, tke suckers begin to present 

 tkemselves, and tke footstalk exkibits itself, and is 

 rapidly prolonged. In tke course of four kours tke 

 Podophrya kas acquired its' definitive form, and kas 

 now only to increase in size — to grow. 



If tke animal wkick we kave followed from its birtk 

 were now complete, it would be a case of simple 

 metamorpkosis. But tke Podopkrya wkick kas been 

 tkus formed, gives rise to new individuals by sponta- 



* I have given unhesitatingly, but in an abridged form, the 

 details supplied by Messrs. Claparede and Lachmann, for, without 

 having gone as far as they, I observed a quite analogous state of 

 things. 



t The first appears to me to be one of those facts which (subject 

 to consideration) might be associated with true ovo-viviparity. 



