INVEltTEBRATA, CRYPTOGAMIA, MICROSCOPY, ETC. 973 



tranquil, till at length scarcely an animalcule is to be seen exhibiting 

 its natatory capacities, all with rare exceptions having attached them- 

 selves to the organic debris or other suitable fulcra, through the 

 medium of their two trailing posterior flagella, which possess a 

 marked adhesive function. Sometimes the entire lengths of these 

 filiform appendages are utilized as organs of adherence, and sometimes 

 only their distal extremities. 



Under these last-named conditions, a highly remarkable modi- 

 fication of the movements of the animalcule was observed. Where 

 the adhesion is effected by the entire length of the flagella, the 

 motion .of the body is simply oscillatory, the four anterior flagella 

 being deployed and agitated without apparently any definite plan 

 of action. When, however, adherence is accomplished through the 

 medium only of the terminations of the flagella, the body gyrates 

 rapidly, and with rhythmical cadence, from right to left and left 

 to riglit, such action causing the adherent flagella to become twisted 

 on each other, while the four anterior ones describe elegant undu- 

 lations round tlie animalcule's body. It would seem highly pro- 

 bable that the form described by Professor Leidy under the title 

 of Trichoni/mpha ngilis, found within the intestine of the American 

 white ant, Termes Jlnvicans (likened by the discoverer to the performers 

 in an American ballet, whose chief attire consisted of long cords 

 suspended from their shoulders, whirled in mazy undulations around 

 them as they danced), represented a species of Hexamita, observed 

 under the conditions just described. Phenomena precisely identical 

 with those just recorded of Hexamita intestinalis have been found by 

 the author to obtain also in the non-parasitic and marsh-dwelling 

 species, H. inflata. 



Of the Ciliata fifteen species are figured and described, viz. : 

 ectoparasites of young trout, the garden snail, Hydra vulgaris, a 

 planarian worm, and the fresli-water sponge, endoparasites of man, 

 frogs and toads, a myriapod {lalus marginalus), the water-beetle 

 (Hydrophilus piceus), the earth-worm, a marine planarian, and the 

 intestinal and pulmonary cavities of fresh-water molluscs. 



Chlorophyll and Starch in Infusoria.* — M. P. Van Tieghem 

 mentions tluit he has often observed perfectly developed grains of 

 chloropliyll in true Infusoria, and notably in Stentor polymorphus. 

 Besides chlorophyll, the Euglence contain grains of starch (paramylon). 



New Opalinids.f — In 1879, M. E, Maupas described J Eaptophn/a 

 gifjanten, a new Opalinid from the intestines of anourous Batracbia. 

 M. A. Certes records having also f(juud the Infusorian in Bufo pan- 

 ihcrinus from Constantine. Despite tlie rapidity with which they died 

 when removed from their natural surroundings, M. C'ertes succeeded 

 in preserving some alive for five or six days in albuminous water, and 

 made preparations in a mixture of osmic acid and 33 per cent, alcohol. 



M. Certes confirms generally the description given by M. Maupas, 



* ' Hull. Bot. S(>c. Fraiu-o,' xxvii. (1880) p. 132. 

 t • Bull. Soc. Zool. France.' iv. (1880) pp. '2i0-4, plato xii. 

 ; Sue liib Juiiriiai, ii. (187'.i) p. 588. 

 VOL. III. 3 T 



