ON ANIMALCULES. 
121 
ARTICLE VII. 
COL. BOREY DE ST. VINCENT ON THE ALLEDGED DISCOVERY 
OF M. EHRENBERG, RESPECTING ANIMALCULES. 
Your readers may recollect a notice inserted in the Register , vol. 1, 
page 557, giving the late Baron Cuvier’s account of the observations 
of M. Ehrenberg, on animalcules, which were supposed to overturn 
the prevalent belief among naturalists in spontaneous generation. 
Colonel Bory de St. Vincent, who has been a microscopic observer 
of reputation for more than thirty years, has recently published the 
following remarks on the labours of M. Ehrenberg, which I shall 
here translate. 
“ Hitherto it has been believed that the Infusoria are extremely 
simple in structure, but many years researches have convinced the 
German naturalist, M. Ehrenberg, that they are all endowed with a 
very complicated organization. In certain species of these animal¬ 
cules, he alledges that a mouth at least is observable, as well as a 
stomach ; in many there are even more than fifty stomachs, which 
can, independently of each other, he filled and emptied. Muller had 
supposed these stomachs to he embryo eggs (ovules) or perhaps 
other Infusoria, still smaller than the animalcule which had swallowed 
them. M. Ehrenberg tells us of a very simple method of proving 
the contrary of this: he colours with various substances, such as 
indigo and carmine, the water in which the Infusoria live, and he has 
observed that in about one or two minutes they fill one or more of 
their stomachs, with the coloured fluid. According to this observa¬ 
tion the Infusoria are nourished through a mouth, and not, as had 
been believed, by simple absorbtion. M. Ehrenberg, in a word, 
with a sort of precision that carries a certain school, to make out the 
natural statistics of things, upon which we have the most incomplete 
data, informs us in what proportion the genera and species of Infu¬ 
soria are distributed, if not over the surface of the globe, at least 
over the thirty degrees of latitude, he has travelled over, in a small 
part of the surface of the ancient world.” 
“ Now it has been long published that the Microscopica are almost 
the same in all the waters of the universe, according as these waters 
are fresh, salt, or consist of infusions. I think it is not yet possible 
to render their geographic distribution more precise. As to the sto¬ 
mach of monads, I must persist in doubting it, and I remain in the 
persuasion derived from the observation of thirty years, that the 
Gymnodce, among other animalcules are nourished by absorption. 
The internal globules (inter anca of Muller) cannot he stomachs; no 
