318 Transactions of the Society. 



Concluding EEMArKs. 



If we now briefly recapitulate the results that have been 

 obtained, we may sum them up as follows : — 



1. The genus Follicidina is undoubtedly represented in fresh- 

 water. 



2. The vermiform bodies which had been supposed to represent 

 a young state of Folliculina are indeed young Follicidina, born 

 from an act of division, or may represent a free-swimmmg form 

 acquired by the animalcule ai'ter a metamorphosis of the whole 

 individual. 



3. Daday's Lagynus occllatus must disappear, as representing 

 this vermiform state of Folliculina. 



A few words might yet be added, about a fact concerning 

 another Jnfusorian, but on which some light may be afforded by 

 the results obtained on Folliculina. Claparede and Lachmann, in 

 their " Etudes sur les Infusoires," 1860-61 p.'191, pi. ix. figs. 7 and 8, 

 have figured spherical or ovoid bodies wliich they consider as 

 representing very young stages in the life of Stentor polymorijlms. 

 Biitschli (p. 1731), after examimation of these and comparison with 

 some more sketches in Lieberkilhn's unpublished plates, and con- 

 sidering from his own observations that the Stentorean theory 

 could not hold its ground, created for them a new name and a new 

 family, the Licbcrkilhnina, a family without described species or 

 genera, whose rather disconcerting diagnosis he gives in the follow- 

 ing terms; "Moderately large, nearly spherical bodies with 

 peristome-field rounded .equally or flattened, and a rather thick 

 or, on the contrary, rather thin covering of cilia. Sometimes on 

 the ventral side, either in advance of the posterior part of the body 

 or nearer the anterior extremity, is a diagonal line of stronger cilia, 

 like the posterior cirrhi of the Hypotrichous Infusorians. The 

 peristome-field seems to be sometimes ciliated and sometimes 

 naked ; it is generally distinctly striated, like Stcntor. Contractile 

 vacuole on the left side of the body ; macronucleus elliptical. 

 Fi-esh-water." 



Now in the course of my studies on Infusoria I have often met 

 with representatives of Biitschli's Lieberhi'ihnina. They are com- 

 monly to be found, a few days after collecting, in the ga'herings 

 where Stentor is in large numbers, and very variable in outward 

 structure, more or less covered with cilia, with a partly developed 

 peristome or no peristome at all, nucleate or without any nucleus, 

 large or small, and some of them so perfect in all their organs that 

 they certainly bear all the characters of defined specific types. 

 After a long acquaintance with these little beings, however, I had 

 finally come to the conclusion that they were neither distinct 

 .species nor precisely young stages of Stentors, but simply fragments 



