62 



HA RD WICKE'S SCIENCE- G OSSIF. 



notice of work on the Infusoria which I have 

 found in the intestinal canal of white ants in 

 Calcutta. 



These parasites are referable to the order Holo- 

 Iricha. They appear to differ specifically from the 

 Infusorians, also Holotrichous, drawings of which 

 from Professor Leidy's paper on the Parasites of the 

 Termites, are reproduced in Plate xxviii. of Mr. 

 Kent's "Manual of the Infusoria." The changes 

 of form in the Bengal species are almost as Protean 

 as in the Amoeba (Figs. 49 to 52 and 53). The animal- 

 cule, which for want of a name I shall designate 

 Parasite No. I, is a strong and a rapid swimmer ; in 

 these respects its movements are suggestive of the 

 Paramgecia (Figs. 44, 45, 46). The measurements of 

 four of average size, taken after death, were as follows : 

 (a) length ^", breadth .^" ; [b) length ^,-,", 

 breadth ^fik " ; (^) length ^ij ". breadth .^g " ; [d) 

 length ^jjg ", breadth jlg". The cilia at the anterior 

 extremity are directed forwards, and being longer 

 than those distributed over the body, they form a 

 ciliary collar around what I take to be the mouth- 

 parts of the organism. In some cases the cilia at the 

 posterior extremity are slightly elongated, and form a 

 more or less conical tuft ; but in respect of length 

 they do not approach the cilia of the collar. The 

 body frequently shows parallel spiral markings, which 

 may indicate the position of the cilia, or a ridged 

 surface. I have observed what I take to be tricho- 

 cysts in a few cases (Fig. 44), though I doubt if these 

 are constantly present in the cortical layer of the 

 parasite. There is a distinct and large nucleus, of 

 circular form ; but I have not yet detected any con- 

 tractile vesicle, a feature this organism shares in 

 common with the genera Trichonympha and Pyrso- 

 nema of Leidy. The body is generally gorged with 

 food, identical in appearance with the contents of the 

 alimentary canal of the termites in which the parasites 

 occur. They appear, therefore, to live directly on 

 the semi-digested food-contents of the intestine of 

 their host. No one who has once examined the living 

 active mass which inhabits the white ant will be 

 surprised at the voracious appetite of that destructive 

 insect ! I have spoken of the " mouth-parts " of the 

 organism, by which I mean an external hyaline cap, 

 surmounting a narrow tube, perhaps pharyngeal, 

 which is in most cases prominently located at the 

 anterior extremity, and fringed by the ciliary collar 

 (Figs. 49 and 50). It does not occur in all the para- 

 sites I have had under observation, and, moreover, 

 in some instances the cap is replaced by a minute 

 hyaline sphere (Figs. 46 and 54). 



The tube which I refer to as being probably pharyn- 

 geal is constricted in the middle. In favourable 

 positions it can be "worked down" through the 

 hyaline cap (Figs. 49, 51), and it then resembles an 

 oral opening. Such of the parasites illustrated in 

 Professor Leidy's paper as have been reproduced in 

 Kent's work have no mouth-parts resembling those 



observable in the animalcula which infested a large 

 proportion of the white ants I examined ; and there 

 are other differences. I nevertheless express myself 

 provisionally as to these organs being mouth-parts : 

 I have not seen food pass into them, nor through the 

 constricted tube, nor have I detected food in its im- 

 mediate neighbourhood, indeed the dimensions of 

 some of the ingested particles have been such as to 

 preclude the possibility of their having traversed that 

 tube, unless it be dilatable. From the identity of the 

 food-stuffs in the parasite with those in the intestinal 

 organs of the termite, we must infer with Mr. Leidy 

 that an oral aperture exists ; or else assume that 

 temporary digestive cavities are formed, and the food 

 particles involved as in the Amoeba. The latter 

 assumption, however, is scarcely tenable ; the cilia 

 appear to spring from a cuticle. I have paid some 

 attention to this point, because it would be interesting 

 to determine how the abundance of ingested food in 

 the animalcule gains admission into its body. I have 

 often observed the infusorian spinning rapidly on its 

 longer axis without making, or seemingly even 

 attempting to make progress forwards. Its revolu- 

 tions have been too rapid to admit of my ascertaining 

 whether or not it was feeding. Again, in swimming 

 through the semi-digested food of the termite, the 

 anterior extremity of the parasite often assumes the 

 helicoidal form observed by Professor Leidy in 

 Trichonympha agilis. Tentatively I incline to the 

 belief that on one or other, or it may even be on ,both, 

 of these occasions the animalcule is taking in food. 

 In two instances I found parasites with two tubes 

 terminating in a single cap, and I was at first disposed 

 to regard this as evidence of longitudinal fission ; 

 but I have more recently obtained the animalcule in 

 forms suggestive of reproduction by transverse fission, 

 and it is obvious the subject needs further investi- 

 gation. 

 Calcutta, 



ASTRONOMY. 

 By John Browning, F.R.A.S. 



AT the meeting of the Royal Astronomical Society 

 held on the nth of January, the Rev. S. J.. 

 Perry read a paper on the surface of the sun in 1888. 

 Observations of the sun were made at Stonyhurst on 

 241 days in the year; the sun was without spots on 

 102. The number of days without spots is rapidly 

 increasing. There were nine such days in 1S86, 

 twenty-nine in 1887, and forty-two in 1888. As a 

 number of small spots in a group were observed on 

 the last day of the year at the high latitude of 36^ 

 south, the minimum period is probably drawing to a 

 close, as the appearance of such groups generally 

 portends a new period of maximum disturbance. 



A paper by Mr. I. Roberts on "Photographs of 

 the Nebulae in the Pleiades and in Andromeda," was- 



