Chimera

“ Psyche, it is your bounden duty to obey Emeralda’s command. Go down to Hell and seek the Jewel.”
“Chimera, adored one, delight of my soul, oh, your splendour fills my eyes! Your word gives strength to my weakness! I feel it! You may not bear me away; I am unworthy of your wings. But I adore and bless you for coming! Chimera, Chimera, your splendour has beamed once more upon me! your voice has inspired me, and I will do what you say. . . . You let the light of hope break in upon me; new strength flows through my limbs. Chimera, I hope, I hope! I will go down into Hell ”

“ It would be a Digression from our present Purpose, if we should enter upon a comparative View of the Parts of Generation [32] of both Sexes, and endeavour to confute those Chimeras, and therefore the Use that is at present necessary to be made of this Opinion, is only to shew that this was another Origin from whence these Reports of such Metamorphoses have sprung and been encouraged, as well as any of those others already taken notice of. ”

“ A large lamp chimney with gauze tied over the upper end is useful for inclosing a small plant upon which eggs or insect larvæ are developing. The base of the chimney may be thrust an inch into the soil and the development of the larva as it feeds upon the growing plant can be studied. ”

“ The flaming hurricane seethed round her; behind her feet the path was on fire. The air was fire. But Psyche, whose own soul was on fire, in her own scorching fire of remorse, felt not the glowing heat, and she saw, Out of the living scarlet craters, the orange caves, the hellish chimeras working up their sinuous way like glowing spirals: half arabesque, half beast; half dragon, half tail; flaming sea-horses. They spat and fanned the glowing fire, and, riding aloft on the burning hurricane, the shades swept past Psyche.
“Spirits in the scarlet flames . ”

“ The larva will sometimes wave the abdomen up and down, just as one may see a Chironomus larva do when it has affixed its dwelling to the side of the glass, and this motion probably assists the process of respiration.
When the larvae have been watched under the conditions above described, I have never been able to detect independent motion of the gills. But it is better that every one should observe for himself, and draw his own conclusions from what he sees.
Now let us examine a specimen more closely with the lens, or under the dissecting microscope. ”

“ Notwithstanding the differences in size, color, form, reproduction, and habitat seen in this brief survey, the structure of Algae, Fungi, and Lichens has always appeared to be the same, cellular. When we compare plants apparently so distinct as mushrooms, mildews, encrusting matter of rocks, greenish layers of ponds, sea-weed, etc., the closest examination rarely reveals more than a combination of cells, no Alga, Fungus, or Lichen offering us the distinction of stem, leaves, vessels, or flowers observed in the higher plants. ”

“ I have put some under each microscope, and those who can look into them will see the slide almost covered with small round green cells very much like the yeast cells we saw when studying the Fungi, only that instead of being colourless they are a bright green. Some of these cells will I suspect be longer than others, and these long cells will be moving over the slide very rapidly, swimming hither and thither, and you will see, perhaps for the first time, that very low plants can swim about in water. ”

“ It may seem a small thing to admit that the dull vital actions of a fungus, or a foraminifer, are the properties of their protoplasm, and are the direct results of the nature of the matter of which they are composed. ”

“ When the cells are surrounded by a membrane they remain for some time at rest, but finally the contents escape as a zoöspore, like those already described. By killing the zoöspores with a little iodine the granular nature of the protoplasm is made more evident, and the cilia may be seen. They soon come to rest, and germinate in the same way as those of the white rusts and mildews. ”

“ The ovum of any creature consists of protoplasm, and all the tissues of the most complex living organisms result from the multiplication, differentiation, and specialization of such protoplasmic cell-units. The life of the organism, as a whole, consists in the continuous waste and repair of the protoplasmic material of its cells. No animal, however, can elaborate protoplasm directly from the chemical elements of that substance. The manufacture of protoplasm is a function of the vegetable kingdom. ”

“ Let us quit the infusoria and glance with our microscopic eye at some other marvellous objects belonging to the invisible world. If we look through our magic tube at the downy mould formed upon any decaying substance, a wonderful forest of delicate thread-like plants will be revealed. These beautiful fungi will be seen to multiply and grow, to swell and finally to burst, scattering their invisible spores into the surrounding air.
If we make use of our microscope to examine the eggs of insects we shall have cause to wonder at their elaborate carving and beautiful forms. ”

“ Among the lower plants, it is the rule rather than the exception, that contractility should be still more openly manifested at some periods of their existence. The protoplasm of Algæ and Fungi becomes, under many circumstances, partially, or completely, freed from its woody case, and exhibits movements of its whole mass, or is propelled by the contractility of one, or more, hair-like prolongations of its body, which are called vibratile cilia. ”

“ It thus happens that no animals with image-forming eyes or equilibrating organs move in spirals in three-dimensional space when these organs are functional. Conversely, animals without image-forming eyes or equilibrating organs move in spiral paths. In addition to the ciliates, flagellates, protophyta, swarm spores and zoöspores of algae and fungi, Oscillatoriaceae and rotifers, may also be mentioned the larvae of many worms, echinoderms and molluscs. ”

“ Turning his microscope in all directions, he examined water and found it peopled with minute animalcules, those simple forms of animal life propelled through the water by innumerable hair-like cilia extending from the body like banks of oars from a galley, except that in many cases they extend from all surfaces. He saw not only the animalcules, but also the cilia that move their bodies. ”

“ On a closer examination, a further generation may be discovered even within the bodies of the children. The whole surface is profusely covered with little green bodies, each being furnished with a pair of movable cilia, by means of which the whole organism is moved through the water. ”

“ In some cases an external layer is formed of agglutinated sand-particles; in others of imbricated plates, as in Coccospheres; and in many others radiating spicules stand out on all sides. Throughout sundry classes the exoplasm develops cilia, by the wavings of which the creatures are propelled through the water—cilia which may be either general or local. And then this cortical layer, instead of being spherical or spheroidal, may become plano-spiral, cyclical, crosier-shaped, and often many-chambered; whence there is a transition to colonies. ”

“ In some species the males remain, for the present, quite unknown: and not very much is recorded about the early life-history, eggs, larvæ and pupæ of either sex. The parasitic habits of the chigoes and other allied fleas lead one to expect peculiar modifications of form such as are usually to be observed when an animal passes from an active to a stationary life. These modifications are the more easily understood as the various species are not all stationary to the same degree. ”

“ When the insect wishes to remove the thin membranous pellicle which envelopes the antennæ, it lays these organs in the notch, draws them through, and thus easily strips off the pellicle. The antennæ are most beautifully formed, the surface of each joint being marked with an elaborate pattern like net-work, so that they form beautiful objects for the microscope. ”

“ By means of the propagative affinity all the gemmules emitted by all the cells of the individual flow together and become condensed in the cells which compose the sexual organs, whether male or female (embryonal vesicle, cells of the embryo, pollen grains, fovilla, antherozoids, spermatozoids) , and likewise flow together and become condensed in the cells which constitute the organs of a sexual or agamic reproduction (buds, spores, bulbilli, portions of the body separated by scission, &c.) ”

“ Failing to find facts, evolutionists fall back upon analogies, and support their hypothesis by the supposed analogy of the growth of the embryos of all plants and animals from germs alleged to be originally perfectly similar—simple protoplasm cells, which by subsequent evolution, differentiate themselves as widely as the moss from the man. ”

“ The first organic forms of the protoplasm, the first aggregations of cells, the protozoons, the zoophytes or plant-animals, the gelatinous mussels of the still warm seas, were succeeded by the fishes, then by the reptiles, the birds, the mammals, and lastly man, who at present occupies the top of the genealogical tree, and crowns the animal kingdom. ”

“ The organs of reproduction are partly uni-and partly multicellular; in the unicellular ones a cell without cilia is formed, which may be destitute of a cell-wall, but has one nucleus (oosphere?) , or which has a cell-wall and contains several (generally four) nuclei (aplanospores?) ; in the multicellular, monosymmetric swarm-cells with two cilia (spermatozoids?) are formed. The fertilisation has not been observed. ”

“ Volvocaceæ. The individuals in this order are either uni- or multicellular, and during the essential part of their life are free-swimming organisms. They are generally encased in a mucilaginous envelope, through which 2–6 cilia project from every [48] cell. The vegetative reproduction takes place by the division of all, or a few, of the cells of the individual; in some a palmella-stage is found in addition. The sexual reproduction takes place by isogamous or oogamous fertilisation. ”

“ Something more is needed to bind the mass into a coherent structure. This the animal itself supplies. The bases of the first two pairs of walking feet are large, and contain glands which secrete a glutinous cement, that can be spread like mortar, or spun out into threads.
An American observer devoted much time to the observation of these animals. He says [51] : ‘When captured and placed in a small zoophyte trough, with small branching algae, the individuals almost always proceeded at once to construct a tube, and [150] could very readily be observed under the microscope.... ”

“ At the very bottom of the Silurian series, in beds which are by some authorities referred to the Cambrian formation, where the signs of life begin to fail us—even there, among the few and scanty animal remains which are discoverable, we find species of molluscous animals which are so closely allied to existing forms that, at one time, they were grouped under the same generic name. ”

“ The chief force of all evolution is and remains the power of growth in a definite direction. In regard to the skin this growth is possible in insects only in this way; namely, that the outer layer of cells is increased by the folds which are forced into the superficial chitinous skin. These folds naturally grow from one moult to another in proportion to the multiplication of the cells, and are not smoothed out until after the moulting, when the outer resistance is overcome.
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Fig. ”

“ The Cimexes, or Knats, or Flies, are of a red colour, and do vex and disquiet a Man at night, they suck his bloud, and usually quarter in old Pine-wood, and in ancient Chambers, and are detestable things because of the stinch they emit. And besides them, there is another kind of such Vermine that are of a green colour, and more venemous, and yield a more filthy stinch than the red Worms do. This Insect has wings, and is four times bigger than the Cimex, and live in the Grass; but when the cold Winter approacheth, they then live in hollow Trees, or hide in the Chinks that be in Walls. ”

“ Cellular Cryptogamia; Algæ.—The plants designated by botanists Algæ, and commonly known as sea-weeds, lavers, and fresh-water mosses, are of the most simple structure—mere aggregations of cells—but present innumerable varieties of form and magnitude: many species are mere vesicles of such minuteness as to be invisible to the unassisted eye, except accumulated in countless myriads, when they appear as a green, purple, or reddish, slime in the water ”

“ Attention is, however, most strongly fixed upon the number and variety of spores of cryptogams of which the air operates as a vehicle of dissemination. Germs of the common molds, and the reproductive cells of the algae that live on the roofs of houses, on walls, and on damp earth, are nearly always abundant. ”

“ If tentacles with cells containing only very pale pink fluid, and apparently but little protoplasm, are placed in a few drops of a weak solution of one part of the carbonate to 4375 of water (1 gr. to 10 oz.) , and the highly transparent cells beneath the glands are carefully observed under a high power, these may be seen first to become slightly cloudy from the formation of numberless, only just perceptible granules, [5] which rapidly grow larger either from coalescence or from attracting more protoplasm from the surrounding fluid. ”