Toe NortHern MuicRoscoPist, 
AND 
MicroscopicaL News. 


No. 22. OCTOBER. 1882, 



LIFE-HISTORIES AND THEIR LESSONS. 
By Rev. W. H. DALLINGER, F.R.S., F.R.MLS. 
(Concluded from page 204.) 
N 15 41 reproduce one which it will be seen is extremely like 
the one figured by Dr. Bastian (Fig. 15 a), which it must be 
remembered, he affirms, on the assurance of Gros, was full of 
germs by the resolution of its internal substance; and that each 
of the germs was ‘capable of developing into a tardigrade. But, 
fortunately, the germs.were not left to their capabilities ; they were 
suspiciously followed out, and they became Stentor ceruleus! As 
drawn, after hatching, they are presented in the attached or fixed 
state at 15 ¢, and in the swimming condition at 15 @. Clearly, the 
eggs of the stentor had got into the dead hollow body of the tardi- 
grade and developed there! 
“That this inference is a correct one I have repeatedly verified, 
and at Fig. 15 e give an additional instance in proof. This is the 
hollow, perfectly transparent skin of a tardigrade. Nothing has 
been left within but the hard retractile tube and ‘gizzard,’ and 
these, as seen at a’, have fallen from their true position. At d'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 ‘homogenetic pangenesis in 
tardigrades !’” 
Now, since the publication of this paper, I have received evidence 
of many similar instances. In Fig. 16 a, I give one. I received 
from Devon some little time since a jar of water and vegetable 
matter from a bog. It was, as it was reported to be, plentifully 
peopled with tardigrades and the rotifer known as Cad/idina elegans. 
It was by no means difficult to find the cast or empty “skins” of 
tardigrades. a is one of these which was found on the fourth day 
VoL. 2. 

