Page:Philosophical Transactions - Volume 095.djvu/28

16 are effected differently from those of high temperature; in some of them, as the amphibia of, the lungs receive atmospheric air, which is arbitrarily retained in large cells, and not alternately, and frequently changed. The fishes, and the testaceous vermes, have lungs which expose their blood to water, but whether the water alone, or the atmospheric air mingled with it, furnish the changes in the pulmonary blood, is not known.

In most of the genera of insects, the lungs are arborescent tubes containing air, which, by these channels, is carried to every vascular part of the body. Some of the vermes of the simpler construction have no appearance of distinct organs, but the respiratory influence is nevertheless essential to their existence, and it seems to be effected on the surface of the whole body.

In all the colder animals, the blood contains a smaller proportion of, the red colouring particles than in the mammalia, and aves; the red blood is limited to certain portions of the body, and many animals have none of the red particles.

The following animals were put into separate glass vessels, each filled with a pound weight of distilled water, previously boiled to expel the air, and the vessels inverted into quicksilver; viz. one gold fish, one frog, two leeches, and one fresh-water muscle. These animals were confined for several days, and exposed to the sun in the day time, during the month of January, the temperature being from 43° to 48°, but no air bubbles were produced in the vessels, nor any sensible diminution of the water. The frog died on the third day, the fish on the fifth, the leeches on the eighth, and the fresh-water