cxlviii GENERAL SUMMARY OF SCIENTIFIC AND 



beauty. The discovery of Mr. Hudson, especially of the male 

 of Lacimdaria socialis, weakens Mr. Huxley's argument con- 

 siderably. And though it may possibly still be held desira- 

 ble to rank the Kotifera among the Vermes, we can not reckon 

 among the reasons their sexual resemblances to the echino- 

 derms; and there is at least one, viz., JPedalion, which it seems 

 impossible to class among the worms, for it has six hollow 

 limbs worked by striated muscles, some of which pass freely 

 through the cavity of the body. 



II. BACTERIA. 



Messrs. Dallinger and Drysdale, whose excellent researches 

 on the life history of a monad have elicited universal com- 

 mendation, have recently taken up the study of Bacteria. 

 Using the new immersion, one-eighth of Powell and Lealand, 

 an objective capable of resolving the strise of Arnphipleura 

 pellucida into beads, as also the fine strire of Surirella gem- 

 ma, they find that B. termo is furnished at both ends with a 

 ilagellum, exquisitely delicate, and only to be discovered 

 when in the proper position in regard to the light. 



In an abstract of a paper by Dr. Hollis on " What is a Bac- 

 terium ?" in the January number of the Monthly Microscop- 

 ical Journal, the limitations we should place on the term 

 Bacteria are summed up: 1. They strictly form part of the 

 vegetable kingdom. 2. The name ought to be restricted to 

 those minute rod-like hyaline bodies, B. termo and B. lineo- 

 lata of Cohn, with a more or less rapid to-and-fro motion. 

 3. We must always associate the presence of true Bacteria 

 (especially the B. termo) with putrefactive or analogous 

 changes in organic liquids. 



Development of Bacteria in Organic Tissues Protected from 

 Air. 31. Servel recently read an interesting paper on this 

 subject before the French Academy of Sciences. The first 

 two experiments were upon Guinea-pigs; the live animals 

 were decapitated so that the head fell at once into a chromic- 

 acid bath. Examined six days after immersion, the outer 

 parts were hard and preserved, but the cerebral parts were 

 in manifest corruption, and the cerebral pulp, under the mi- 

 croscope, presented a large number of bacteria of all sizes. 

 In these experiments the absence of air-germs was not suf- 

 ficiently demonstrated, and M. Servel repeated them with the 



