124 Mr. H. J. Carter on the Organization of Infusoria, 



spherical digestive globule *. That the food is broken down by 

 a digestive process in this way may be seen in the Amoeba, where 

 it frequently appears in all degrees of solution in the same in- 

 dividual ; viz. from an opake, crude mass, to a blue or brownish 

 fluid, according to the colour which the material may assume 

 under its altered condition. In Astasia digestive globules also 

 appear; but here the food is taken in through a distinct mouth, 

 while in Euglcna the absence of such vesicles would appear to 

 indicate that its support is of a different kind, if not introduced 

 in a different way. 



Spherical Cells. — These cells, to which I have just alluded, 

 abound in the sarcode of Otostomaf, and apparently in many of 

 Ehrenberg's Allotreta (fig. 92). In Otostoma they arc of dif- 

 ferent sizes, because they are in all stages of development ; and, 

 to keep up their numbers, without distending the animalcule, 

 they must be continually undergoing rapid decay, as well as re- 

 production. The most remarkable feature in them is, that the 

 largest, besides other granular bodies, contain several small 

 cells, filled with a brownish-yellow fluid, and these cells are also 

 found free among the general group ; but what their ultimate 

 destination is, as they do not appear to grow larger, or to bflj 

 come reproductive, I am ignorant. In the Planarice to which I 

 have alluded, as well as in Rotifera, such cells nearly fill the 

 stomach, and the large ones being more or less grouped together 

 in the former, at the same time that they chiefly contain the 

 yellow cells, the whole acquires a sub-acinous or glandular appear- 

 ance, very like the hepatic element surrounding the alimentary 

 canal of some of the lower worms. It is also interesting to 

 find here that each possesses a lash of cilia (about 50) projecting 

 from one part of the cell, which, for some time after they are 

 forced into the water through the oral orifice, or a rupture of the 

 body, act by their whipping movements as imperfect locomotive 

 organs, while, when these cells are fixed in situ, the same whip- 

 ping movement must keep up a continued agitation of the gastric 

 contents, which, if not conducted in a similar way in the Infu- 

 soria, has its analogue there in the circulation of the digestive 

 globules, and granular matters of the sarcode (fig. 92 a, g). 

 Although ovules may occasionally issue together with these cells 

 from Otostoma, &c. as well as from the Planarice, yet the two 

 can hardly be confounded ; as in the Planarice the peculiar 

 character of the ovule not only distinguishes it, but by careful 

 manipulation the whole generative apparatus may be exposed 

 outside the stomach. 



* Ann. & Mag. Nat. Hist. vol. iv. p. 93, 1849. 

 t Idem, vol. xvii. pi. ix. fig. (> h h. 



