26 THE PSYCHIC LIFE 



by all the authors of his time, especially by Dujardin. 

 At the present day, however, naturalists have come 

 back to it, in consequence of observations which have 

 been made on other Micro-organisms that possess a 

 more perfectly developed eye. 



M. Pouchet has discovered in the Glenodinium 

 polyphemus, which belongs to the group of Peridinia 

 (or Dinoflagellates, according to the classification of 

 Biitschli), an eye about the function of which there 

 can be no mistake. 



This eye occupies a fixed place in the cellule of 

 the Peridinium; it has a uniform location and position. 

 It consists of two parts, the one a veritable crystalline 

 humor, and the other a veritable choroid. The cry- 

 stalline is a strongly refracting, hyalin, club-shaped 

 body, rounded at its free end, which is always directed 

 forwards, while the other end is immersed in the mass 

 of pigment which represents the choroid. This latter 

 is clearly determined; it forms a sort of hemispherical 

 cap, enveloping the posterior extremity of the crys- 

 talline. In one of the two forms of Glenodinium pol- 

 yphemus, the choroid pigment is red; in the other it is 

 black. 



M. Pouchet has been able to establish that in the 

 young animals the crystalline is first formed of six to 

 eight refracting globes, which are merged into each 

 other in order finally to constitute one unified mass. 

 Also, the choroid is the result of a combination of the 

 pigmentary granules which, at first sparse, group to- 

 gether and finally form the hemispheric cap that covers 

 the posterior extremity of the crystalline. 



In fact, the visual organ of this Peridinium is com- 

 posed of exactly the same parts as the eye of a meta- 

 zoon with one exception, the absence of the nerve 



