from the Cell-contents of the Characese. 15 



by a mucus-investment), together with a few of the common- 

 sized gonidia, some gonidial substance, and a great number of 

 the bright refractive globules before mentioned. Iodine gave 

 the green pellets a deep brown colour, but did not alter in ap- 

 pearance the rest of the contents. 



Two days after I had collected a number of these globular 

 bodies and placed them in a watch-glass for observation, partly 

 in and partly out of their respective internodes, the green mass 

 in many had become divided up into four or more sacs, which 

 were ciliated like the parent one, and enclosed in a second trans- 

 parent spherical cell. These also rotated individually and en 

 masse, while the division appeared to have enabled them to 

 throw off the greater portion of the dark green pellets, now 

 become black, and lying loosely in a more or less flocculent state, 

 like effete matter, in the inner cell. 



The third day the spherical cells had burst, and the ciliated 

 sacs, which averaged 1 -430th of an inch in diameter, were set 

 free in the water. 



They now presented different appearances, according to their 

 contents, shape and motions. All were filled with a colourless, 

 granular mucus, charged with small vesicles, and each presented 

 also a large " contracting vesicle." In some there was left only 

 a trace of the dark matter, while in others there was a con- 

 siderable quantity, either in an undefined shape, or in small 

 globules. They presented both an undulatory motion of the 

 cell-wall, and a ciliary motion of its surface. Sometimes the 

 cilia were motionless, and lay like a halo of short radii round its 

 circumference, though the sac was otherwise gradually changing 

 its shape; while at others there was no appearance of cilia at 

 all. On the other hand, sometimes the sac was rotating rapidly 

 under a globular form, with its wall undulating and cilia playing 

 over it with corresponding activity ; the rotation of the sac ap- 

 peared contrary to the movement of the cilia. Occasionally a 

 sac might be seen under an elongated, oblong form, with a 

 slowly undulatory change of shape at one end, and a languid 

 movement of the cilia on its surface generally ; again it might 

 be seen with mucus-radii spread out in the same way as those 

 of Actinophrys Sol. 



It would, however, be endless to describe the forms which 

 these sacs presented ; but it is worthy of remark, that instead of 

 being like those of the Amoeba, they so closely resembled the 

 order of one-celled ciliated animalcules, many of which were 

 present in their largest forms, that, had it not been for the 

 dark matter mentioned, I should have frequently been unable 

 to determine the difference ; and I cannot help thinking it pro- 

 bable, that many of these quasi animalcules have their origin in 



