722 SUMMARY OF CURRENT RESEARCHES RELATING TO 



Hydroids from Natal.* — Ernest Warren describes a collection of 31 

 species (14 new) of hydroids made on the Natal and Znluland coasts. 

 He establishes two new genera: — Asyncoryne (with scattered filiform 

 tentacles, moniliforni in structure, terminating in a kind of rudimentary 

 capitulum); Paragattya somewhat near Gattya humilis Adman, and 

 exhibiting a remarkable mixture of characters typical of the Eleuthero- 

 plea and Statoplea. 



Protozoa. 



Blastodinium. — E. Chatton describes three new species of this genus, 

 which he established in 1906 for certain remarkable Dinoflagellate para- 

 sites from the intestine of pelagic Copepods and Appendicularians. A 

 large cell or macrocyte, which in its resting state is the equivalent of the 

 vegetative form of free Peridinians, is surrounded by several (as many as 

 six) zones or generations of microcytes. 



New Order of Protozoa 4— B. Zarnik describes a new species 

 of Gromia, which he names G. solenopus, in virtue of its peculiar 

 pseudopodia. These are branched, anastomosing structures of absolutely 

 hyaline protoplasm, which from their origin and behaviour he believes 

 to be of fluid consistence at first, but taking on a more resistant character 

 wherever their surface comes in contact with the surrounding water. 

 Zarnik suggests that the " Waben-struktur " of the protoplasm in the 

 pseudopodia of Gromia as described by Biitschli, was no other than a 

 criss-cross wrinkling of this hardened surface, following on a contraction 

 of the still fluid content of the pseudopodia. 



The author further describes within the outer " shell " of the or- 

 ganism a peculiar internal skeleton of minute brownish silica plates — 

 " phacochondria " — structures that have hitherto always been regarded 

 as chloroplasts. Other invariable inclusions are the " kinochondria," 

 highly refractive bodies dancing within minute vacuoles : these are 

 probably of an excretory nature. Reproduction by formation of flagel- 

 late spores was very frequently observed. 



Zarnik maintains that the structure of Gromia is of a nature so 

 different from that of other Rhizopods that it cannot be included in any 

 of the groups known hitherto. The inner silica skeleton and the sac- 

 like pseudopodia are peculiarities that necessitate the erection of a new 

 order, for which the name Solenopoda is suggested. 



Schizogony in Amoaba.§ — L. Mercier has studied Anutba blattm 

 from the food-canal of the cockroach, a species marked by its large and 

 characteristic nucleus. He finds that the nucleus divides by a process 

 of constriction, and then the cytoplasm follows. But although the 

 constriction of the nucleus seems on the whole a simple process, the 

 chromatin presents a succession of appearances which recall some mitotic 

 figures. 



* Ann. Natal Museum, i. (1908) pp. 269-355 (4 pis. and 23 figs.), 

 t Bull. Soc. Zool. France, xxxiii. (1908) pp. 134-7 (4 figs.). 

 % SB. Phys.-Med. Ges. Wiirzburg, 1907, pp. 72-8 (1 fig.). 

 § Comptes Kendus, cxlvi. (1908) pp. 942-5. 



