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DEVELOPMEST OF THE STUDF OF MICRO-ORGANISMS. 47

afford the surprising revelation of a large number of small
roundish, or oblong bodies, which wander about with lively, rota-
tory movements. Only when their motion abates, particularly
when they arrive at objects which afford them nutriment, can
their shape be more accurately distinguished.
" In the contraction in the middle of the body a lip-like pro-
tuberance may sometimes be observed, which I suppose to be
the mouth, since it guides the organism in its approach to objects.
It is, therefore, a hairless, probably also mailed, infusorium with
an abdominal aperture, whose exterior is not unlike that of the
paramsecium and the kolpoda."

Fig. 11.

TOOTH-AXIMALCULA (ZaHNTHIERCHEX) AXD
BuHLMAXx's Fibers.
a, I, c, Zahnthierchen with abdominal aperture.
(After Klencke.)
Ficinus proposed for these animalcula the generic name Den-
ticola.
Eobin^' ^^ (1847) called them Leptothrix buccalis, and classed
them anions: the alg».
Klencke^*^ continued the researches of Biihlmann and Ficinus,
and furnished us with drawings of these tooth-animalcula (Zahn-
thierchen), as well as of the denticolfe or fibers of Biihlmann, sup-
posed to be produced by the coalition of the animalcula. They
are reproduced in Fig. 11. These diagrams are also interesting,
because they exemplify the great influence Avhich a preconceived
notion may exert upon what is seen under the microscope.
Klencke had learned from Ficinus that the tooth-animalcula pre-
sumably possessed an abdominal aperture (Fig. 11, a, h, r), and
he consequently, not doubting the correctness of Ficinus's
observation, saw it very distinctly.