Royal Society, 503 



stitute a coil. This filament is formed of the discs contained within 

 the blood-corpuscle. In Mammals, the discs entering into its forma- 

 tion are so few as to form a single ring ; and hence the biconcave 

 form of the corpuscle in this class, and the frequent annular form of 

 the filament it produces. In the other Vertebrata, the discs contain- 

 ed within the blood-corpuscle are too numerous for a single ring ; 

 and they consequently form a coil. At the outer part of this coil, 

 the filament, already stated to be flat, often presents its edge ; whence 

 there arises a greater thickness of the corpuscle, and an appearance 

 of being cut off abruptly at this part ; while in the centre there is 

 generally found the unappropriated portion of a nucleus ; and hence 

 the central eminence, surrounded by a depression, in those corpuscles 

 which, from the above-mentioned cause, have the edge thickened. 

 The nucleus of the blood-corpuscle in some instances resembles a ball 

 of twine ; being actually composed, at its outer part, of a coiled fila- 

 ment. In such, of the invertebrata as the author has examined, the 

 blood- corpuscle is likewise seen passing into a coil. 



The filament, thus formed within the blood-corpuscle, has a re- 

 markable structure ; for it is not only flat, but deeply grooved on both 

 surfaces, and consequently thinner, in the middle than at the edges, 

 which are rounded ; so that the filament, when seen edgewise, appears 

 at first sight to consist of segments. The line separating the appa- 

 rent segments from one another is, however, not directly transverse, 

 but oblique. 



Portions of the clot in blood sometimes consist of filaments having 

 a structure identical with that of the filament formed within the 

 blood-corpuscle. The ring formed in the blood-corpuscle of Man, 

 and the coil formed in that of Birds and Reptiles, have been seen by 

 the author unwinding themselves into the straight and often parallel 

 filaments of the clot ; changes which may be also seen occurring in 

 blood placed under the microscope before its coagulation ; and simi- 

 lar coils may be perceived scattered over the field of view, the coils 

 here also appearing to be altered blood-corpuscles, in the act of un- 

 winding themselves ; filaments, having the same structure as the fore- 

 going, are to be met with apparently in every tissue of the body. 

 The author enumerates a great variety of organs in which he has ob- 

 served the same kind of filaments. 



Among vegetable structures, he subjected to microscopic examina- 

 tion the root, stem, leaf-stalk, and leaf, besides the several parts of the 

 flower : and in no instance of phanerogamous plants, where a fibrous 

 tissue exists, did he fail to find filaments of the same kind. On 

 subsequently examining portions indiscriminately taken from ferns, 

 mosses, fungi, lichens, and several of the marine algae, he met with 

 an equally general distribution of the same kind of filaments. The 

 flat filament seen by the author in all these structures, of both ani- 

 mals and plants, he states to be that usually denominated a fibre. 

 Its appearance is precisely such as that of the filament formed within 

 the corpuscle of the blood. It is known, he remarks, that discoid 

 corpuscles circulate in plants ; and it remains to be seen whether or 

 not filaments are formed also in these. 



