1885.] NEW-YORK MICROSCOPICAL SOCIETY. 39 



the spicules to felt together and thus sustain in position, the 

 simple structure of living jelly, with its system of aqueducts for 

 the distribution of the alimentary supply, and also with its system 

 of oscula, or sewer outlets of the effete water. These are some- 

 times called the dermal or flesh spicules, because their office is 

 to bind together the sarcode of the colony. 



2. The next notable objects are the yellow spheres scattered 

 among the skeleton spicules. Formerly they were known as 

 gemmules, but now they are oftener called statospheres, and 

 statoblasts. These are the reproductive bodies. They are some- 

 times called the winter eggs — a significant, though not scientifi- 

 cally accurate term. They may be compared to capsules filled 

 with very fine seeds, since they are stored with reproductive 

 germs, of which each has several hundreds. These pretty golden 

 spheres are produced at the close of summer, shortly before the 

 death of the colony — for the sarcode perishes at the approach of 

 the cold season. The sporules, or germs, of the statosphere sur- 

 vive the winter, and with the first warm weather they leave their 

 spherical nest by a hole at one side of the sphere. 



3. Here and there in the mount may be noted one or more 

 yellowish granules. They are sporules which have been libera- 

 ted in the breaking down of the statosphere by the nitric acid 

 used in preparing the mount. I think it owing to the acid that 

 these sporules are seen as granular, or not homogeneous bodies. 

 It may be added here that these germs thus set free in spring, 

 either start new colonies by attaching themselves to submerged 

 sticks or stones, or, as is frequently the case, they settle upon the 

 little heap of skeleton spicules of the extinct colony, and so 

 actually rehabilitate and enlarge the defunct establishment. 



4. These statospheres, or winter eggs, are held entangled in 

 the felted mass of the skeleton spicules in the same way that the 

 bur of a burdock is held in place when put in the hair of a boy 

 by some mischievous playmate. Each bristly hair of the bur is 

 hooked. So it is with the exterior of these globular bodies. To 

 keep them in place in the felted skeleton, the surface of each 

 statoblast is studded with tiny spicules, each one of which is bi- 

 rotulate, or two-wheeled ; that is, it has an axle connecting the 

 two wheels and consolidated with them, like the bobbin, or spool, 

 on which thread is wound. This shaft connecting the two little 

 wheels is so held in the shell, or outer coat, of the statosphere, 



