The Ocean World: Being a Description of the Sea and Its Living Inhabitants.Figuier, Louis
Science
The Ocean World: Being a Description of the Sea and Its Living Inhabitants.
Figuier, Louis
Marine animals; Ocean
The _Wand-like Vibrion_ (Fig. 31) has the body transparent, filiform,
with long articulations, often appearing as if broken at each
connection. It moves very slowly in the water. Leuwenhoek observed this
second species joined to the first in the teeth tartar, and also in a
great number of organic infusions. "There is no microscopic object,"
says Dujardin, "which excites the admiration of the observer more
vividly than the twisting spirillum" (Fig. 32). He is struck with
surprise when he first contemplates this little creature, which, under
the greatest magnifying power, only presents the appearance of a thin
black line, fashioned like a corkscrew, which every instant turns upon
itself with marvellous velocity, such as the eye can scarcely follow, or
the mind divine the cause which produces this startling phenomenon.
[Illustration: Fig. 32. Spirillum tournoyant (Ehr.), magnified 300
times.]
The _Monads_ are other infusorial animalcules which make an early
appearance in vegetable infusions. They constitute a family that are
destitute of any covering. The substance of their bodies can swallow
itself, or draw itself out more or less; many of the whip-like filaments
serve as organs of locomotion. They are sometimes provided with lateral
appendages disposed as a kind of tail. Their organization is extremely
simple; their whip-like filaments are so fine as to be scarcely
perceptible, their length being sometimes double and even quadruple the
length of the animal itself.
The _Lentille Monad_ (Fig. 33) is a species which is frequently met with
in vegetable and animal infusions. The older microscopists had it
indicated under the form of a globule, moving in a slow and vacillating
manner. The globule is formed of a homogeneous transparent substance,
swollen into tubercles on its surface, and throws out obliquely a
whip-like filament, three, four, or even five times the length of the
body of the Monad.
The _Cercomonad_ of Davaine was discovered by this gentleman in the
still warm ejections of cholera patients. Its body is pyriform, having,
in front, a vibratile filament, very long, very flexible, and easily
agitated. Behind the body there is a thicker straight filament attaching
itself sometimes to neighbouring corpuscles, round which, in this case,
the _Cercomonad_ oscillates like the ball of a pendulum round its stem.
[Illustration: Fig. 33. Monade lentille (Dujardin), magnified 1000
times.]
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