ZOOLOGY AND BOTANY, MICROSCOPY, ETC. 467 



Green Pigment of Actinia equina.* — G. Bohn reports on a number 

 of experiments which have led him to the conclusion that the green 

 pigment of Actinia equina has an assimilating role, like the pigment of 

 Anthea cereus, so that the anemone is able to utilise C0 2 in sunlight. 

 Two phenomena occur together, as in green plants — respiration and 

 assimilation. 



Protozoa. 



New Technitella and its Selection of Shell Material.f — E. Heron- 

 Allen and A. Earland describe Technitella thompsoni sp. n. from the 

 North Sea. In the construction of its test " the utmost limit hitherto 

 observed, both as regards construction and selection, is reached." The 

 test is free, sub-cylindrical, rounded, and slightly tapering at one 

 extremity and bluntly truncate at the other, consisting of a hollow 

 chamber with composite walls built up entirely of echinoderm plates in 

 more or less perfect condition. The plates which overlap each other 

 are fastened together without visible cement. There is no special 

 aperture at either end of the test, the extremities being closed by means 

 of similar plates set at an angle, so that they resemble the incurving 

 petals of a flower. The surface of the test is neat and regular and 

 entirely devoid of extraneous matter, but the projecting edges of the 

 flat (or slightly curved) plates used in the construction of the test give 

 a somewhat irregular or serrate appearance to the outline. It is hyaline 

 white, with a slight iridescence when dry, due apparently to diffraction 

 effects caused by the film of chitin with which the plates are probably 

 fastened together. The length is 1 • 8 mm. ; the maximum breadth 

 4 mm. The nearest ally seems to be T. raphanus. In neither of the 

 dredgings in which the two specimens were found was there any 

 abundance of echinoderm plates. The problem of the selection is 

 discussed. 



Botryomycosis.J — G.- Bureau and A. Labbe have studied a case of 

 this strange and rare disease, which they attribute to an amoeba. Four 

 forms occur : (a) a spherical or spheroidal stage, sometimes flattened, 

 with lobose pseudopodia, large nucleus, and great activity ; (b) a more 

 regularly rounded form, often flattened, with thick ectoplasm, with the 

 nucleus achromatic or invisible. It seems that (b) results from (a) and 

 marks the end of the vegetative stage. Then there is (c) a regressive 

 form, flattened, irregular, showing hyaline or pigmentary degeneration, 

 and (d) a fusiform, Gregarine-like stage, with delicate ectoplasm, and 

 compact, very chromatic nucleus. 



There is multiplication by transverse division amitotically. But 

 mitosis is exhibited in the (d) form. Mulberry-like masses, the old 

 Botryomyces, represent plastogamy. The form (a) gives rise to " echino- 

 cysts." It seems likely that (a) and (d) represent a sexual dimorphism. 



* Comptes Eendus, cxlvii. (1908) pp. 689-92. 



t Journ. Quekett Mior. Club, 1909, pp. 403-12 (6 pis.). 



J Comptes Rendus, cxlvii. (1908) pp. 697-9. 



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