974 RECORD OF CURRENT RESEARCHES RELATING TO 



but finds the buccal sucker has a double crown (internal and external) 

 of vibratile cilia stronger than those of the body. The internal crown 

 is upon a kind of very fine membrane, and even the bottom of the 

 sucker appears to bo ciliated. Particles of carmine in the fluid in 

 which the animal was swimming were drawn in by the current set up 

 by these cilia and accumulated in the funnel of the sucker, without, 

 however, penetrating into the interior of the body. According to 

 M. Maupas, the long contractile canal communicates with the exterior 

 by a certain number of very small oval orifices ; but these M. Certes, 

 though he sought very carefully for them, was unable to detect. 



M. Maupas has placed the animal amongst the Opalinida, but 

 M. Certes finds some difficulty in agreeing with this. The typical 

 Opalinid (0. ranarum) is remarkable for the large number of its 

 nuclei and the absence of a mouth. There is nothing similar in 

 H. gigantea. The nucleus is single ; the buccal sucker is, if not a 

 true mouth, at least an organ sui generis, where the first acts of nutri- 

 tion are localized. The thickness of the cuticle and the clear layer 

 separating it from the mass of the body excludes all possibility of 

 phenomena of endosmosis. On the other hand, M. Certes does not 

 think it right to conclude that, because the solid particles of colouring 

 matter drawn by the cilia into the funnel of the sucker do not 

 penetrate the sarcode mass, the albuminous liquid, by which the 

 animal is nourished, does not do so either, and that the sucker is only 

 an organ of attachment. Moreover, the animal is more often found 

 attached to the small Tcenice of the intestine of Biifo paniherinus than 

 even to the walls of the intestine. On these several grounds it should 

 be considered to form a link between . the true astomatous species 

 (Opalinida) and those which have a we /-defined buccal orifice. 



In all probability, Haptophrya gigantea will not remain isolated in 

 this new group. M. E. Blanchard found, in 1878, in the intestine of 

 an Alpine Triton, an unknown Infusorian, which at first sight 

 M. Certes thought was H. gigantea ; but a closer scrutiny enabled him 

 to recognize diflerences between the two species, though they were 

 evidently closely allied. 



In the preparations of M. Blanchard there is no trace of a dorsal 

 canal, nor does he recollect having seen one in the living animal. In 

 one of the individuals treated with osmic acid, there exists in the pos- 

 terior portion of the body a large vacuole which may be the indication 

 of the contractile vacuole. The cuticle has a double outline but is 

 destitute of the characteristic strise so conspicuous in the preparations 

 of H. gigantea. Finally (the most important difference), the buccal 

 sucker is replaced by an oval depression armed with very strong cilia, 

 and which cannot be better compared, for form and general appearance, 

 than to the mouth of a tiny whale, with its whalebone. The two ex- 

 tremities of this depression are connected by muscular cords (strongly 

 coloured by the carmine), arranged so that the anterior part of the 

 animal seems, under a low power, as though provided with a horse-shoe 

 sucker abruptly terminated in the interior part. There are, besides, 

 characters which establish apparently a clear line of demarcation, not 

 only between the two species, but also between the Infusorian of the 



