152 PROCEEDINGS OF THE ACADEMY OF [PaRT 1 



lections from Rouelbeau, most of the specimens were found in the 

 state of rest, enclosed in a thick gelatinous envelope, just like a 

 larva in its cocoon.^'' Now, as often as I managed to cause a slight 

 current of carmine-glycerine to come into contact with the cocoon, 

 I could see the animalcules, violently distressed and yet unable to 

 jump, revolve on their longitudinal axis, like a top, and at an extra- 

 ordinary rate, perhaps twenty turns in a second, the whirling lasted 

 for two or three seconds, and the animalcule collapsed — dead. 



The only explanation of these phenomena seems to be, that the 

 animalcule must have been submitted to a violent whirling current, 

 in a circular or spiral direction, and the current could only take 

 its origin from the inside of the cocoon itself, from the discharge, 

 in fact, of some matter which only the animalcule itself could have 

 produced. Now the direction of the tubular opening in Crypto- 

 monas is such, that on the supposition of ejected material, there 

 must have been produced the exact whirhng current whose effect 

 we have noticed. 



As for the composition of the ejected matter, we remain in com- 

 plete uncertainty. We shall see later on, that in Trentonia flageUata 

 the spherules which fill the ectoplasm explode in a finely granu- 

 lar mucilaginous material, easily demonstrated as a white little 

 cloud by using India ink. In Cr-yptomonas, the same result might 

 have been expected, but some experiments with this method have 

 proved fruitless. I distinctly detected, in some particular cases, 

 displacements in the dark mass of infinitely small black grains, 

 and which were certainly not due to oscillations of the flagella (which 

 give quite a different appearance), but no white cloud was formed. 

 The granules did not resolve in these cases into mucilage, but per- 

 haps into very fine granules, mingled with liquid substance, whose 

 effect in India ink would hardly be conspicuous. 



Astasia mobilis (Rehberg) AlexieeflF. Plate VIII, figures 58-61. 



Under the name Astasia mobilis, Alexieeff (1) described in 1912 

 a Flagellate belonging to the group of the Euglenina, and which 

 he had found in the intestine of a Cyclops. That Flagellate, how- 

 ever, had already been described by Rehberg in 1880, as Lagenella 

 mobilis, but a genus Lagenella had been created in 1850 by Schmarda 

 for another organism, and the name had to be abandoned here. 



1^ Some of the animalcules, inside the gelatinous pellet, were seen to divide 

 longitudinally; but my observations on the subject are very few, and though 

 confirming in the main those of Belar on the same subject, would not add any 

 phenomena of importance. 



