472 RECOKD OP CXJKRENT RESEARCHES RELATING TO 



After discussing some points suggested by Halin's paper, Dr. Dawson 

 mentions that he recently found in a specimen of Eozoon structures 

 which may possibly indicate contemporaneous plants. He previously 

 remarked the occurrence of deep pits or cylindrical cavities in some 

 specimens of Eozoon, and supposed that they might be of the nature 

 of oscula. Those now referred to, however, are more definite than 

 any previously observed. They are cylindrical perforations pene- 

 trating the whole thickness of the mass and filled with calcite. One 

 of them is simple, another seems to bifiu'cate. They are about an 

 eighth of an inch in diameter, and present indications of alternate 

 swellings and contractions. In approaching them, the plates of ser- 

 pentine split into two and then unite, forming a continuous close wall 

 of sarcode. This proves that they are not perforations of any boring 

 animals. They must be either definite canals penetrating the mass 

 while living, or must represent cylindrical stems, algee, or other perish- 

 able organisms, around which the Eozoon has grown. As they are 

 only exceptionally seen, the latter supposition is perhaps the more 

 probable. Peculiarities of this kind, to which perhaps heretofore too 

 little attention has been given, are of some importance with reference 

 to the controversies respecting Eozoon. 



BOTANY. 



A. GENERAL, including Embryology and Histology 



of th.e Phanerogamia. 



Embryo-sac in Angiosperms.* — Mr. H. Marshall Ward continues 

 his researches "j" on the history of development of the embryo-sac in 

 Angiosperms, the species which he has now made the chief subject of 

 examination being Bufomus umhellatus. The general result is still 

 further to confirm the conclusions of Strasburger. as opposed to those 

 of Vesque and Warming. 



The results which he has attained induce the author to reject the 

 idea that the nuclei in the embryo-sac are homologous with pollen- 

 grains, and are therefore spores, while they encourage the theory that 

 we have, in the repeated bipartition of the nuclei in the embryo-sac, 

 a rudimentary prothallus-formation, as Strasbvu'ger believes. The 

 embryo-sac is either a macrospore, or a joint structure formed by two 

 apposed macrospores. 



The conclusions arrived at from an examination of Butomus are 

 confirmed by observations on Alisma Plantago, Anemone japonica, 

 Lupinus venustus, (Enoihera biennis, Pijrethrum halsaminatum, Antliemis 

 tinctoria, Verbascum pUomoides, Lobelia syphilitica, and other plants. 



In order to avoid the ambiguous use of the term " nucleus " for 

 the protoplasmic cell-nucleus, and for the cellular portion of the ovule, 



* ' Journ. Linn. Soc' (Bot.), xvii. (1880) p. 519. 

 t See this Journal, ante, p. 301. 



