PRACTICAL NOTES ON ct HETEROGENESIS. ! 
345 
full of germs by the resolution of its internal substance ; and 
that each of the germs was u capable of developing into a 
tardigrade.” But, fortunately, Mr. Chantrell did not leave the 
germs to their capabilities ; he suspiciously followed them out, 
and they became Stentor Caeruleus ! As drawn after hatching, 
they are presented in the attached or fixed state at 9a, and in 
the free swimming condition at 9b. Clearly the eggs of the 
stentor had got into the dead hollow body of the tardigrade, 
and developed there ! 
That this inference is a correct one I have repeatedly veri- 
fied, and at fig. 10 give an additional instance in proof. This 
is the hollow, perfectly transparent skin of a tardigrade. No- 
thing has been left within but the hard retractile tube and 
“ gizzard,” and these, as seen at a, have fallen from their true 
position. At b a small oval body was seen, perfectly, and 
watched ; and eventually the small rotifer c — probably Monura 
dulcis — emerged from it, and at length escaped from the skin 
of the tardigrade altogether. 
Surely it is unsatisfactory science to consider a phenomenon 
like this “ heterogenesis,” and to label it u homogenetic pan- 
genesis in tardigrades ! ” 
The “ transmutations ” of the living protoplasm of vegetables, 
given in evidence of the hypothesis, are all subject to the same 
defect. That is everywhere assumed, which at least might 
have presented another explanation, had all the possibilities of 
-error been eliminated, and continuous observations been made. 
I select, to illustrate this, fig. 11, PI. CXL., from Mr. Chantrell’s 
drawings. This object I saw in the living state. It is described 
us a 66 curious fungoid growth, found in a trough with Anacharis, 
some weeks old.” Now it appeared to me, in the living state, 
to be quite impossible, apart from unbroken observation, to 
determine whether the amoebae or amoeboid masses, a a, 
attached to the arms of the fungus, were anything more than 
preying upon it and devouring it as food. But the presump- 
tion was that the protoplasm of the fungus was being 66 trans- 
formed” into amoebae. But can such an inference be main- 
tained ? We know how easily the minute spore of the smaller 
-creatures, as, for example, the monads, may penetrate into the 
very substance of growing vegetable forms, and become inhabit- 
ants of the cells. Look, for instance, at the fact of ditomaceae 
being absorbed from infusorial soil into the roots of plants, and 
being built up unaltered into their stem substance.* And that 
spore may germinate in the cells of plants is fully attested. 
Besides, what can be more uncertain than the organism to 
which an amoeboid condition of protoplasm belongs ? It 
* u Silliman’s American Journal,” May 1876. 
