426 ANNUAL RECORD OF SCIENCE AND INDUSTRY. 



agilis. It is about -jfo of an inch long, and half as wide 

 as long. It is fusiform, and clothed with cilia of extraordi- 

 nary length, some of them extending from the head to a dis- 

 tance beyond the end of the body equal to a third of the en- 

 tire length of the animal. Although actively and incessant- 

 ly in motion, it remains attached to some object. Its chief 

 movements consist in the frequent retraction or shortening 

 and bending of the head end, with a narrowing and length- 

 ening or shortening of the whole bodv, and a swelling out- 

 wardly and moving downwards or backwards of the long 

 cilia, with a waving of the shorter ones at the summit of the 

 head. 



Dr. Leidy has found enormous quantities of infusoria and 

 other parasites in the intestines of the white ant {Termes 

 Jtavipes). The contents were mainly composed of decaying 

 wood, which not only occupied the intestines of the ants, but 

 in some cases is distributed as morsels of food occupying the 

 interior of the parasites. In many instances the parasites 

 are so numerous as to make up the greater portion of the 

 bulk of the intestinal contents of the white ants, and maybe 

 estimated by millions. As the discovery was a recent one, 

 he was not able yet to say to what extent these ants were 

 generally infested with the parasites; but he had found that 

 every individual which he had examined, collected from a 

 single nest, contained them. 



The JYoctiliica miliaris is well known by descriptions and 

 figures in the books, though we have never known of its 

 being seen by more than one American, the late Mr. Edwin 

 Bicknell, the well-known microscopist. Those he saw were 

 collected in the harbor at Portland, Maine. They are round 

 infusoria, with a large, long propelling lash. Under the 

 name of Zeptodiscus medusoides Hertwig describes an ex- 

 ceedingly interesting Noctiluca-like organism, which he had 

 the good fortune to discover in the harbor of Messina during 

 the winter of 1876-77. This new form is perfectly discoid 

 in shape, with the flagellum characteristic of JVoctlkccce. Its 

 size varies, measured across the disk, from 0.6 mm. to 1.5 mm. 

 The disk is thickest in the centre; somewhat raised or con- 

 vex on the dorsal side, while the ventral is concave. Near 

 the ventral surface and in the centre there is a bipartite, 

 ovoid nucleus, the smaller half of which is homogeneous, the 



