150 
POPULAR SCIENCE REVIEW. 
“ A kind of muscle, I suppose ?” 
“ No, not exactly a muscle; it is a portion of the substance 
of the animalcule, endowed with this contractile property : that 
is the best definition that we can at present give of its nature. 
If you watch it uncoiling (for it coils up so rapidly that the eye 
cannot follow the movement), you will distinctly see the internal 
filament elongate, and assume a wavy appearance as it is ex- 
tended, until at length it becomes almost straight from end 
to end.” 
“ But, stay a moment,” observed my pupil ; “ how does it 
happen that when the pedicle, as you call it, becomes 
extended, the cup, which, during the coiling process, had 
assumed the globular form, also expands, and there seems to 
be a kind of agitation all round the rim, when the flower is 
fully blown, if you will allow me to employ the expression ? 
What is that vibration?” 
“ It arises from the action of an appliance that the animal- 
cule possesses, to enable it to obtain a supply of nourish- 
ment, — a circlet or wreath of c cilia/ little ham-like appendages, 
similar to those that I showed you upon the cells of Yolvox.” 
“ Why, then, this bell- animalcule may be a vegetable, after 
all, if it is furnished with such organs.” 
“ On the same principle, then, you and I may be vegetables; 
also the oysters that we consume. Have you forgotten what 
I told you concerning them, when I showed them to you 
upon Yolvox : that they are found in ourselves, and are 
numerous in the gills of the oyster? In Yorticella, they 
supply the place of pseudopodia, the false feet of Amoeba, 
and the Sun- animalcule ; for, by their rapid vibrations, they 
cause a current to flow constantly in the direction of the 
mouth, and this brings with it a supply of nourishment for 
the animalcule. This I will demonstrate to you by an 
interesting experiment.” 
So saying, I removed the slide from the stage of the micro- 
scope, and, taking a clean one from my cabinet, transferred to 
it, from a small bottle, a fresh drop of water containing some 
more Yorticelke. 
“ These animalculse have not yet been fed with indigo,” I 
observed, after having satisfied myself that the drop contained 
some of the living forms in question ; and taking from a box 
of colours near at hand, a small cake of indigo, I rubbed it in 
a little water upon another slide, and then transferred a drop 
of the solution to the slide with water containing the Yorti- 
cellte, and replaced it on the stage of the instrument, having 
previously covered it with a small piece of thin glass to prevent 
the evaporation of the fluid. This operation completed, I 
invited my friends to draw near, and inspect my little charges 
at their meals. 
