514 THE BEGINNINGS OF LIFE. 



The vessel contained, as I have said, an abundance 

 of Chlorococcus growing in jelly-like masses and also 

 in other modes. There was, for instance, a very large 

 quantity of small green vesicles — from r^oo" to -50V0'' 

 in diameter — which did not exist in any obvious jelly- 

 like matrix. Some of these vesicles grew out into elegant 

 Confervse, whilst others progressively increased in siz^ 

 so as to yield the much larger vesicles from which the 

 Ciliated Infusoria and the Rotifers were derived. 

 Multitudes of these small vesicles, however_, did not 

 increase in size at all, owing to the continuance of 

 processes of fission^ though they remained in a state of 

 aggregation. They thus formed masses which increased 

 in size till more or less spheroidal heaps were produced 

 about 2-^" in diameter, partly separate and partly in 

 apposition with one another. 



A pellicle on the surface of the fluid was in the main 

 composed of these various elements ; and they also were 

 the principal components of the thin layer by which 

 the glass beaker was lined. But, thickly interspersed 

 amongst some of the heaps of minute Chlorococcus- 

 vesicles, there were a number of dark-brown ovoidal, 

 egg-like bodies, also about -^\^" in diameter. I soon 

 satisfied myself that these were the so-called 'winter- 

 eggs' of the beautiful and highly complex Rotifer known 

 by the name of Hydatlna senta^. Such 'winter- eggs' were 



^ These observations were made during the month of April 1872, and 

 the fluid in which the Chlorococcus had developed had been placed in 

 the beaker about six weeks previously. 



