INVERTEBRATA, CRYPTOGAMIA, MICROSCOPY, ETC. 975 



Triton and Balantidium elongatum and entozoon that Stein has foiind 

 in Triton cristatus and txeniatus. 



H. Tr'donis is proposed as the name of the new species. 



Dr. E. Everts has recently published * the description of an 

 Opalinid (Ojmlina Discoglossi) found by him at Naples, in Disco- 

 glossus picfus. In size rather than in general form, in habitat, in the 

 existence of a single nucleus, a dorsal canal, and a sucker, and also in 

 the great analogy in the phenomena of reproduction, this Opalinid 

 singularly resembles that described by M. Maupas, with which, how- 

 ever, it cannot be confoiuided. 



Importance of Foraminifera for the Doctrine of Descent.t — At 

 the 63rd Congress of the Association of German Naturalists and 

 Physicians held at Dantzig in September, Professor Mobius, of Kiel, 

 read a paper with the above title. 



He began by quoting Dr. Carpenter's view that the genera and 

 species of tlie Foramiuifera cannot be determined after the usual 

 method, but that the only natural classification of the great mass 

 of difl'erent forms is to arrange them in accordance with their degree 

 of relationship. Professor Mobius himself had come to the con- 

 clusion from his researches among the Foraminifera which he had 

 collected in Mauritius in 1874 that the repeatedly occurring pecu- 

 liarities among the Foraminifera may serve and must serve in form- 

 ing an idea of their nature and zoological position. The sarcode 

 of the Foraminifera behaves with regard to the formation of the 

 skeleton and shell just as does the protoplasm of the eggs of 

 the Metazoa to the formation of the germs and of all organs pro- 

 ceeding from them. Like the protoplasm of the egg, it possesses a 

 quite definite and hereditary capacity for self-development. As con- 

 firmatory of Darwin's theory of descent, they possess a value neither 

 greater nor less than that of all other animal classes. The Professor's 

 forthcoming work on the Foraminifera of Mauritius will contain much 

 detailed evidence in support of his views. 



In the discussion which followed, it was suggested that the point 

 of difference between the author and Dr. Carpenter lay in the fact that 

 Dr. Carpenter had regard to the sarcode rather than to tlie skeleton, 

 to which latter Professor Mobius attached the greater importance. 



New Moneron.| — K. Mercschkowsky describes a new form 

 (observed at Naples), under the name of Monojwdium KowalevsJii/i. 

 It is, of course, non-nucleated, and has a fairly consistent granular 

 proto^dasni, with rounded vacuoles, varying but little in form. As a 

 rule it only gives off a single homogeneous pseudopodium, wliich is 

 about ten times as hmg as the diameter of the mass. Attaching itself to 

 a filament of a Leptolhi-ix, it gradually draws the body after it. 

 When two individuals unite the component mass breaks up into three. 

 This was the only mode (jf reproduction which was observed, and the 

 observer has no information to give as to any other process for effect- 

 ing the same result. 



* 'Tijds. Nederl. dferk. Verconijiing,' iv. (1879) pp. 02-96, plato iv. 

 t ' Nature," x.\ii. (18S0) pp. 527-8. 

 j 'Zool. Anzeig.,* iii. (I8h0) p. l:U». 



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