AND THE LOWER ANIMALS. 193 



neous division and by gemmation;* hence we here 

 see geneagenesis with all its peculiar features. 



The Podophryge are simple animals ; but in the 

 Infusoria, as in the Zoophytes, there are many species 

 which live in colonies, and cover with a miniature 

 arborescence submerged aquatic plants, and the 

 shells of fresh and salt-water mollusks, which thus 

 travel about laden with this living moss. Let us 

 see how these things occur in the case of the Epistylis 

 plicatilis. This is one of the commonest and best 

 known species, and has been specially noticed by 

 the two skilled micrographers from whom we have 

 quoted so extensively. 



From the body of one of these animals there 

 springs an embryo, a larva, of an elongate almost 

 cylindrical form, and supplied with a girdle of vibratile 

 cilia. Placed in a few drops of water, which to 

 it, and to the eye, assisted by the microscope, are 

 almost an ocean, what becomes of it? Direct ob- 

 servation tells us nothing in this instance ; but with 

 Claparede and Lachmann we may say, it is more than 

 probable that it acts like the larva of Podophryaa — 

 that it attaches itself at some suitable point, and 

 is at first metamorphosed into a simple Bpistylis. 



At this period the larva assumes a more or less 

 elongated conical form ; its extremity, which is 

 slightly expanded, is provided with a circular hood, 

 sloping toward the mouth; a band of vibratile cilia 

 crowns the internal border of this hood, and by its 

 movements produces a series of currents which carry 

 the nutritive corpuscles to the animal's mouth. The 



* Claparede and Lachmann first demonstrated this latter mode 

 of reproduction in the species referred to. 







