THE VINEGAR EEL. 215 
was their remarkable power of life. He commences by telling 
us, what now is well known, that — 
This minute animal is the immediate cause of that destructive disease in 
wheat known by farmers under the name of ear-cockle or purples. On open- 
ing some of the diseased grains, I found there the whole converted into a 
mass of white fibrous substances, apparently cemented together by a glutinous 
substance, and formed into balls, which could easily be extracted entire from 
the grains ; and which, when immersed in water, instantly dissolved, and 
displayed in the field of the microscope, hundreds of perfectly-organized 
minute worms, all of which, in less than a quarter of an hour, were in lively 
motion. 
Having left some of them on a glass for some four or five 
days, they were dried up and apparently dead ; but upon again 
moistening them with water, much to his surprise, in a very 
short time they began to show signs of life, and in the course 
of an hour were as lively as before. This experiment he made 
again and again, with the same results ■ but found that those 
which had been kept the shortest time under water recovered 
their motions soonest ; so that, after a second or third suspen- 
sion, at intervals of a week or ten days, they could not be 
revived. 
If, however (he says), the second experiment be not made too soon after 
the first, the chances of recovering are greater. The longest interval, after a 
second suspension of life, I was able to recover them, was eight months. If, 
when first revived, they are kept in water, excluded from the air, and evapo- 
ration prevented, they remain alive and propagate for many months. 
Their eggs have an extremely delicate transparent shell or 
structureless membrane, through which the young can be at- 
tentively observed. With some care it may be seen moving 
within its envelope, and, by a spinal motion, at last breaks 
through and escapes. The egg measures about the -^uth of an 
inch in length ; and soon after the young animal quits the shell, 
it shrivels up and disappears. 
Each single grain of corn contains many eels. Bauer found 
in one — 
Seven full-grown and a hundred young eels, all alive, beside a great many 
eggs ; and, upon being placed in water, they were seen twisting and wriggling 
about, like so many serpents. 
He experimented upon grains, after keeping them for five 
years and eight months, and always with the success narrated ; 
but he found the corn required to remain under water a much 
longer time before the eels were resuscitated. When they die, 
they remain in water, unaltered in form and character, for 
many days or weeks. 
