where the electric action was not employed, but every other condition
fulfilled. In a letter to the author of the _Vestiges_--two are
inserted, one on the independent generation of fungi--Mr. WEEKES says--

"One hundred and sixty-six days from the commencement of the
experiment--the first acari seen in connexion therewith, six in
number and nearly full-grown, were discovered on the outside of the
open glass vessel. On removing two pieces of card which had been
laid over the mouth of this vessel, several fine specimens were
found inhabiting the under surfaces, and others completely
developed and in active motion here and there within the glass.
Making my visit at an hour when a more favourable light entered the
room, swarms of acari were found on the cards, about the glass
tumbler, both within and without, and also on the platform of the
apparatus. At this identical hour Dr. J. Black favoured me with a
call, inspected the arrangements, and received six living specimens
of the acarus produced from solution in the open vessel."

Specimens of the insect were sent to Paris, when they set a whole
conclave of philosophers a-laughing, because they were found to contain
ova. Other specimens were sent to London, but there their fate was
sealed by their being found to be, not a new species, but one then
abundant in the country. For ourselves we think the experiment not
conclusive. We adopt HUME'S principle. All but universal experience
having established that life is _ex ovo_ only, we must have a
proportionate body of counter evidence to establish a different mode of
generation. At all events, Mr. WEEKES'S protracted gestation of 166 days
by his galvanic battery is not likely, in the existing rage for
despatch, to supersede the existing routine of reproduction.