Morning journal and courier., 1883-07-24
Price Three c, dts

bIe of holding single colored corpuscle or
 human blood, The three pairs of four
 jointed legs are curiously arranged. The an
 terior pair spring from the lateral surface of
 the body little behind and beneath the an'
 tennae and extend backward as if used in
 swimming, which is actually the case, as thes
 little creature lives in the blood vessels of it's
 victim. The two posterior pairs instead of being arranged symmetrically along the sides of the body, spring directly from the trun- cated posterior surface and point directly backward in parallel lines, so that, when ex-
 amined under a low power, they are easily
 mistaken for kroad and fieshy tail. The
 legs end in three claws connected by web like
 films, adapted to the purpose of propellinS
 the body in a viscid fluid like that of tha fy's blood. In it's first embryonic stage this little being closely resembles the amoeba. and, like that color1ess particle of living mats ter, is rapid and active in it's movements.l Presently, however, the spherical body be% gins to enlarge and elongate then g cons striction appears, as if it were about to dis vide-that is, to reproduce by self-diyisionJ This process continues to certain stage oG development when from the posterior cell e bud is put forth which extends backward unS ! til it resembles broad elongated tail. Sim< ultaneous with this an internal cavity makes ! it's appearance, and two minute perforationR extend forward, to terminate externally ifE the sucking disks before mentioned. At tha same time two minute buds, one on each late erai surface, form the initial traces of the anterior pair of legs, while two still more mi : I mute buds mark the positions of the lash1 like :1ntenne. Thus, from a simple ameba | the creature passes into the condition of as tailed ampba, and from thence, by the longi-. [ Sudinal division of the tail into two pairs of | legs, the evolution of tho third pair by bud ! ding, the development of antenne by tho ' same process, and the excavation of gastric | cavity, into a finished insect allied to the | mites of tho dematozoic and entozoic class. The color of the matule insect Is very light | yellow, and it's surfaces are covered with mi \ mute splnes. It Is without eyes, either com l pound or simple, and as yet tho highest DOW ! CTS and the finest lenses have not been able | to discover any traces of the complex respi- I ratory organization that distinguishes the higher and nobler representatives of the in- sect type Others may be more fortunate. should the disease which has now just ap- peared prove to be general and widely diff fused.
 The discovery of en insect so inconceiva- bly, minute-not more than oue-tenth as large as it's nearest relatives, the SGrc0pteS, and far smaller than the mouth and dysentery mites naturally raises some interesting questions in natural history. The reader may ask him. self what can be the possible use of leg less than one-twentieth of milGmetre in length, divided into four sections whose mi nuteness is almost inconceiveble As tailed
 amosba, which it represents at one sta of its existence, this little being makes its way as easily and rapidly along the vessels of the Ay's brain as it possibly can with three pairs of legs which are only used for swimming. Obviously, no purpose of utility is subserved by the subsequent development into an in sect, and thus one is forced to accept hy pothesis that Darwin very guardedly an- nounced as result of his later studies-that of the spontaneous passage of inferior into superior types without subserVing any spec ial purpose. This question, however, is one that every naturalist will prefer to decide for himself, in view of such facts have been ! described, and one that in no way concerns the purpose of this article, which is to put entomologists on their guard, that when
 they see the bodies of dead flies lying about on the carpet by dozens of Q summer morn ing they will think it worth the while make @ few autopsies, and to secure for themselves specimens of an insect whose ex- istence now rests upon tho three or four mi croscopic preparations mounted by the dis coverer in the summer of 1876. Possibly such an epidemic may never occur again, and in that event any record made this summer by concurrent action will remain the sole conclusive evidence of direct connecting ! link between the lowest and highest types of | microscopic life.