338 Mr. H. J. Carter on the Seed-like Body of Spongilla 



spore of (Edogonium. Again, all these cells present the same 

 brown-yellow tinge on the application of iodine, except those of 

 (Edogoniurriy which generally, though not when newly developed, 

 become violet and almost blue. 



Now there can be no doubt that those of Spongilla, when 

 forcibly ejected into distilled water, in a convenient vessel, where 

 all precaution possible has been taken to keep out other foreign 

 matter, gradually disappear, and are followed, about the fifth 

 day, by a number of monociliated and unciliated proteiform 

 cells ; while, on the other hand, the same refractive cells issuing 

 from the ovum in the natural way, disappear after the same 

 number of days, and are followed, in the mass of young Bpon^ 

 gilltty by the presence of exactly the same kind of monociliated 

 and uncihated proteiform cells ; lastly, if the issue of the sponge- 

 substance from the ovum be watched, the larger refractive 

 granules will be seen to make their appearance in the amorphous 

 gelatinous mass, for the most part in groups, indicative of these 

 groups being still in the spherical transparent cells, and thus 

 remaining so, appear to become developed, pari passu with the 

 other parts of the mass, into the spherical bodies which I have 

 before stated to be attached to the branch of efferent canals, and 

 to be covered cortically with small monociliated and unciliated 

 proteiform cells ; so that altogether it at first appears as if some 

 at least of these refractive granules did really pass directly into 

 proteiform cells ; and such has heretofore been my opinion ; but 

 since I have seen the globules of oil in a blighted spore of Spi- 

 rogyra apparently become covered with, and subsequently give 

 way to the vital influence of, an inconceivably thin film of proto- 

 plasm, and thus ultimately become transformed into a litter of 

 polymorphic monads, it certainly has struck me that the refrac- 

 tive cells of Spongilla may also be oleaginous in their contents, 

 and might thus become transformed into the young proteiform 

 cells. If so, then the identity of these refractive cells with the 

 refractive cells of the resting-spore of (Edogonium^ although the 

 latter are amylaceous, is explicable by the fact that during the 

 development of polymorphic monads by another way from the 

 cell-contents of Spirogyra, which I have some time since de- 

 scribed*, the starch itself frequently passes first into a refrac- 

 tive substance like oil, and then becomes assimilated into the 

 protoplasm of the monads, — while in the spores of the Algae 

 ((Edogonium among the rest), where there are drops of oil as 

 well as starch-granules, the latter may be transformed into pro- 

 toplasm in the same or another way ; but this does not matter 

 here, as both pass into protoplasm in the development of the 

 new plant, and thus lead to the inference that the material of 

 * Annals, vol. xix. p, 262, 1857. 



