Darwiniana : Essays — Volume 02Huxley, Thomas Henry
Science
Darwiniana : Essays — Volume 02
Huxley, Thomas Henry
Darwin, Charles, 1809-1882; Evolution (Biology)
Among animals the same thing takes place. Among the lower forms of animal
life, the infusorial animalculæ we have already spoken of throw off certain
portions, or break themselves up in various directions, sometimes
transversely or sometimes longitudinally; or they may give off buds, which
detach themselves and develop into their proper forms. There is the common
fresh-water polype, for instance, which multiplies itself in this way. Just
in the same way as the gardener is able to multiply and reproduce the
peculiarities and characters of particular plants by means of cuttings, so
can the physiological experimentalist--as was shown by the Abbé Trembley
many years ago--so can he do the same thing with many of the lower forms of
animal life. M. de Trembley showed that you could take a polype and cut it
into two, or four, or many pieces, mutilating it in all directions, and the
pieces would still grow up and reproduce completely the original form of
the animal. These are all cases of non-sexual multiplication, and there are
other instances, and still more extraordinary ones, in which this process
takes place naturally, in a more hidden, a more recondite kind of way. You
are all of you familiar with that little green insect, the _Aphis_ or
blight, as it is called. These little animals, during a very considerable
part of their existence, multiply themselves by means of a kind of internal
budding, the buds being developed into essentially non-sexual animals,
which are neither male nor female; they become converted into young
_Aphides_, which repeat the process, and their offspring after them,
and so on again; you may go on for nine or ten, or even twenty or more
successions; and there is no very good reason to say how soon it might
terminate, or how long it might not go on if the proper conditions of
warmth and nourishment were kept up.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account