972 RECOKD OF CURRENT RESEARCHES RELATING TO 



but it is not tlie rule ; in them the daughter -individuals have their 

 walls fused together in such a way as to give rise to the appearance of 

 a single organism. If, then, it is allowable to regard the tentacles 

 of a Hydroid polyp as individuals distinct from the hydranth, we 

 have to speak of it as a polymorphous colony, composed of individuals 

 completely distinct and regularly arranged, while the sponge is formed 

 by a colony of individuals irregularly arranged and fused into a single 

 comj^act mass. 



New British Sponge.* — Mr. J. G. Waller describes and figures 

 Saphiodesma minima, a new British sponge of small size (x inch x 

 ^ inch), found by him at Torquay on a small pebble of limestone, held 

 in the roots of Laminaria saccharina. It was unfortunately not in a 

 fresh condition. The species is but little removed from _B. sordida, 

 and but for the absence of tricurvate and bihamate spicules, and the 

 possession of long, hair-like, acerate spicules in the membrane, as it 

 were in substitute, might easily be pronounced to be the same. 



Mr. Waller also shows that Hymeniacidon macilenta, of Bowerbank, 

 is in reality an early stage of B,. sordida, of that author,f so that the 

 former name should be abandoned. 



Protozoa. 



Infusoria as Parasites 4 — Mr. W. S. Kent directs attention to the 

 consideration of the innumerable forms of Infusoria which are referable 

 to the category of " Parasites " in the strictest and simplest sense (as 

 distinguished from " Commensals "), 



Amongst the Flagellata ten species are figured and described, 

 parasites respectively of frogs and other Amphibia, the intestinal 

 viscera of ducks and geese, the house-fly the blood of Indian rats, a 

 nematoid worm ( Trilohus gracilis), the c \mmon cockroach, and the 

 human nasal and respiratory passages, the latter being Dr. J. H. Salis- 

 bury's Asthmatos ciliaris, an active agent, as he considers, in the pro- 

 duction of one form of the infection known as hay asthma or hay 

 fever. 



Hexamita intestinalis, which occurs abundantly in that prolific 

 hunting-ground for parasitic organisms, the rectum and intestine 

 of the frog, Ba7ia temporaria, has recently (in association with 

 examples of this Batrachian dissected at the South Kensington Bio- 

 logical Laboratory) been the object of investigation by the author, 

 as the result of which some points of interest concerning the deport- 

 ment of these singular organisms in the fluid medium they inhabit 

 were placed on record. While usually described as essentially 

 free-swimming organisms, it was found that they possess the faculty 

 also of attaching themselves at will to associated objects, and of 

 passing a temporarily sedentary existence. When first transferred 

 to the field of the Microscope no such pi-operty is exhibited, the 

 creatures hurrying hither and thither in the most aimless and ex- 

 cited manner. Gradually, however, their movements grow more 



* ' Journ. Quek. Micr. Club,' vi. (1880) pp. 97-104, 1 plate. 



t ' British Spongiadse,' iii. p. 230. 



i ' Pop. Sci. Rev.,' iv. (1880) pp. 293-309, 2 plates. 



