cxlvi GENERAL SUMMARY OF SCIENTIFIC AND 



vere treatment with acids will not separate them. Professor 

 Leidy considers it sufficiently distinct to represent a genus, 

 and it is certainly a remarkable object. It was, no doubt, a 

 case of encysting of this kind upon which Dr. Bastian, in his 

 " Beginnings of Life," founds his assertion of the resolution 

 of Euglena into diatoms. 



A paper was recently read before the Quekett Microscop- 

 ical Club, by Mr. W. F. Woods, on the relation of Bucephalus 

 to the cockle. He states that, in contradistinction to the 

 opinion of M. Lacaze-Duthiers, who has described it as a cer- 

 carian form of some unknown Distoma, that either, first, the 

 Bucephalus is the larva of the cockle (and if not, it remains 

 an interesting question for solution what is), or, second, the 

 Bucephalus is a parasite ; but if so, it does not render the 

 cockle sterile, as asserted by Lacaze-Duthiers; and, third, the 

 connection of the tube with the ovisacs, as established by 

 presence of eggs in both, proves that it is not an independent 

 sporocyst, but an organ of the cockle ; while, fourth, if this 

 connection be denied, the Bucephalus must still be developed 

 from eggs seen in the tube. 



In contradistinction of a third assertion by Lacaze-Du- 

 thiers, Dr.Wallich writes as follows in the Lancet (June 12) on 

 the subject of nutrition of the protozoan. He states that for 

 fifteen years he has stood alone in maintaining that the law 

 of nutrition which prevails in the case of the higher orders of 

 the animal kingdom, and constitutes the fundamental distinc- 

 tion between it and the vegetable kingdom, fails in the case of 

 the simplest and humblest creatures ; and he expresses a be- 

 lief that the lower rhizopods provide for their nutrition and 

 growth by eliminating from the medium in which they live 

 the inorganic elements that enter into the composition of 

 their protoplasm, and that there is no hard-and-fast line be- 

 tween the two extremes of the two great kingdoms, but a 

 gradual transition and overlapping from both sides. The re- 

 sults of deep-sea explorations, and especially the examina- 

 tions of the Tuscarora soundings, do not confirm this view; 

 the vegetable growths, even at extremest depths, proceed 

 p)ari passu with the animal, and we see as yet no reason why 

 the same provision that holds good in the case of the higher 

 and terrestrial organisms should not be extended to the hum- 

 blest marine or aqueous forms. 



