

Literatur-TJbersicht. 25 



»I have described the first specimens observed, from tlie Indian Ocean north of the line, 

 as presenting ander a lens the appearence of a sheaf (Hg. A), but this peculiar arrangement 

 1 did not elsewhere meet with. There were, in fact, two modes of aggregation of the vegetable 

 tilaments composing the Algae in question. Everywhere in the Cliina-Sea, in the South Indian 

 Ocean, and in the Atlantic, the form presented was that of small cylindrical bundles. more or 

 less pointed at one end, but obliquely truncated at the other (figs. B, C), having an average 

 length of l j s th ^° Vio^ 1 mcü - They were crearn-coloured and opaque, and exaniination with 

 a lens showed that tbe ends were fimbriated, owing to the component fibres being loose at 

 their extrernities. A third form was occasionally mingled with these, but in very sraall quaiv- 

 tities. It was a minute spherical body, solid and opaque, about the size of an ordinaiw pin's 

 head, brist! ing with minute rays, like a miniature echinus (fig. G). This form I noticed in 

 the North Indian Ocean, and very rarely in the China Sea, but, although associated with the 

 sheaf- and wedge-shaped Alga, it appeared to constitute a very infinitesimal proportion of the 

 scum upon those seas. I look upon it as a species of Oscillatoria.« 



Die letzte dieser Algen, welche Collingwood auf der Abbildung als Figur Gl bezeichnet 

 hat, weist eine Vegetationsform auf, welche in hohem Grade mit der später von mir unter dem 

 Namen Heliothrichum radians beschriebenen Form von Trichodesmium Thiebautii Gom. überein- 

 stimmt. Wie weit dies wirklich dieselbe Axt ist, läßt sich jedoch kaum mit absoluter Sicherheit 

 nach der schematischen Abbildung und der sehr unvollständigen Beschreibung in Collingwood 's 

 erwähnter Abhandlung entscheiden, es scheint jedoch sehr wahrscheinlich, besonders nachdem 

 diese Alge durch Johs. Schmidt mit voller Sicherheit für den Indischen Ozean nachgewiesen 

 ist, daß es dieselbe Art ist. 



Durch Pike wurde Trichodesmium erythraeum, oder vielleicht wahrscheinlicher T. Hilde- 

 brantii Gom., wie es scheint im Jahre 1871, in der Nähe der Seychellen gesammelt, worüber 

 er in der Hauptsache folgendes mitteilt (91, S. 85): 



»I had been curiously waching a singular red streak on the ocean stretching as far as 

 the eye could reach, and was very desirous for a closer acquaintance with it, as our course 

 lay right through its midst. As we Struck the outer edge of it, the streak was not so perceptible 

 as when at a distance. Upon drawing in my net and placing its contents in a clear glass 

 vessel, I found them partly animal and partly vegetable, the former rigid and sinking to the 

 bottom the latter soft and floating. With a good lens I was enabled to separate them, and 

 the rigid masses appeared to be a species of minute crustacea, probably feeding on the plant. 

 This was a minute Alga, and from its peculiar undulatory niotion, I presume it to be one of 

 the marine Oscillatoriae or near it. It is not improbable that it may prove similar to the one 

 mentioned by Harvey as giving the red colour to the Arabian Gulf.« 



Betreffs des Vorkommens von Trichodesmium erythraeum im Molukkischen Archipel und im 

 Meer um Java führt C. F. A. Schneider in einer Abhandlung, welche zuerst in holländischer 

 Sprache erschien (99, S. 302), aber später ins Deutsche übersetzt wurde, folgendes aus (100, S. 63): 



»Auf einer Reise durch den Molukkischen Archipel und das Meer von Java sieht man 

 häufig, zumal in den Monaten Februar, März und April meilenlange grüne und gelbe Streifen 



Wille. Die Schizophyceen. M. f. 



