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THE VINEGAR EEL 
(Anguilhda Aceti). 
BY JABEZ HOGG; F.L.S., ETC. 
A S much doubt seems to prevail concerning the development 
of the Anguilhda; it appears to me a short history of these 
curious members of the animal creation will not be out of 
place in the pages of this Journal. 
It was at one time believed that vinegar eels were pro- 
duced “ in vinegar only (as stated in foot-note, at page 501, 
Popular Science Review, July), without the addition of any 
kind of vegetable matter •” but modern means of research have 
greatly contributed to our knowledge of these as well as many 
other minute creatures. The microscope, assisted by chemistry, 
has exploded the old idea and demonstrated to our senses that 
scarcely a liquid or a solid is free from the attacks of one or 
other of the many varieties of fungi, the sporules of which, ever 
floating about in the air, are everywhere present, and ready, in 
some marvellous way, to initiate the work of either reconstruc- 
tion or destruction, as the case may be. 
A vast number of these fungoid growths are developed in 
fluids during the various processes of fermentation ; if, indeed, 
it may not be said of them, that they are the principal active 
agent in these apparently spontaneous reactions ; all having a 
hidden period of incubation in these fluids, during which unseen 
stage they are causing the chemical changes in them, until 
finally a cryptogamic plant appears, multiplied a thousandfold, 
with each of its millions of sporules endowed with the original 
capacity of producing the same changes in the next fluid into 
which it may chance to enter. 
We observe, also, another peculiarity in these low forms of 
vegetable life, — the remarkable facility they possess of assuming 
other forms and characters, which would appear to depend 
upon the nature and constitution of the fluid, soil, and habitat 
in which they were found. This fact led me to the probable 
conclusion, in my late paper on the Truffle, when noticing the 
ciliated motion before Anguillulse made them appearance in the 
sour mass. I am now anxious that it should be known, that, 
upon making further examinations, I have not been able to 
