60 TRANSACTIONS LIVEKPOUL BIOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



weed lying in an inch or so of water in sandy tide-pools 

 at Eoscoff. The sea-weed upon examination proved 

 to be a multitude of Gonvoluta schultzii which were 

 basking in the sunlight in a most conspicuous way. 

 Suspecting that this was a purposeful action, Geddes 

 experimented and ascertained that the green bodies evolved 

 oxygen and formed starch, while a most disagreeable 

 odour (resembling that of trimethylamine) was exhaled, 

 which probably rendered the animals free from attack and 

 thus enabled them to enjoy the direct sunlight. 



The green bodies consist of cells containing one or' 

 more chloroplasts, one or more pyrenoids, and rod-like 

 masses of starch. In the present species {C. paradoxa) 

 similar bodies but brown in colour are present. The 

 physiological action of the brown bodies has not been 

 tested. That of the green cells of C. roscoffensis has 

 furnished the basis for recent work by Haberlandt* and 

 his conclusion, if correct, in all probability will be found 

 to apply to C. paradoxa. His hypothesis is to this 

 effect. The green bodies are physiologically algae, that is, 

 are descended from algse, " which at the present time owing 

 to profound adaptation in and with the Gonvoluta, have 

 lost their independent algal character and now constitute 

 an integral histological element, the assimilating tissue 

 of the Gonvoluta.' ' f 



Littoral species of animals adopt various devices in order 

 to resist the attacks of the waves. Gonvoluta paradoxa 

 adopts a method which, as Professor Herdman tells me, is 

 paralleled in the Nudibranch Ancula cristata. I The " tail " 

 or pointed hinder extremity of the body is provided with 

 sticky adhesive papillae which enable G. paradoxa to 



* V. Grali; "Aca'la," 1891. 



tSco Laukester "Nature," vol. XLIV., 1891, p. 465. 



J Sue Trans. IJiol. Soc, Vol. I\^, p. 135. 



