1885.] NEW-YORK MICROSCOPICAL SOCIETY. 97 



TRACHELIUS OVUM. 



BY SARA GWENDOLEN FOULKE. 



{Received March 25//?, 1885.) 



In first describing this Infusorian, Ehrenberg attributed to it 

 the possession of a much ramified oesophageal canal, but his 

 view, later upheld by Claparede and I^achmann, has been strongly 

 opposed by W. Saville Kent, who claims that the so-called ali- 

 mentary canal is merely the granular protoplasm highly vacuo- 

 late. My own observations had coincided with those of Mr. 

 Kent, and, recently, strong confirmation of his opinion was 

 obtained from the following phenomena : — 



I had taken from a Chara bog numbers of Trachelii. Their 

 unusually large size — one-fortieth of an inch — afforded special 

 advantages for observation. In color, the specimens were a 

 transparent creamy yellow. When first removed to the live-box, 

 they uniformly showed the ventral side to be flattened and deeply 

 indented longitudinally, so that a transverse section would be 

 kidney-shaped. After a confinement of some minutes, they be- 

 came globose in contour, and thus they remained during cap- 

 tivity ; but when they were set free, the indentation soon re- 

 appeared. In one specimen, the granular reticulation, at first 

 finely shown, seemed to become less profusely ramified, and a 

 current of the protoplasm towards the central mass was noticed. 

 This flow continued until all the smaller branches were massed 

 at a sub-central point, leaving the rest of the body apparently 

 hollow. One pseudopodium-like process was now sent to a 

 more posterior point in the periphery, and the flow was resumed, 

 this time outwards, until the protoplasm was collected into a 

 nodule attached to the cell-wall, along which a small portion 

 flowed, afterwards remaining motionless. No nucleus could be 

 detected in this specimen, though present in all others examined. 



The above condition remained unchanged for nearly an hoar, 

 when, wishing to test the apparent hollowness of the cell, I re- 

 moved from the live-box all but a small portion of the water, 

 and pressed the Trachelius with a blunt knife-blade. Complete 

 collapse ensued, and the animal now resembled a twisted rag. 



It seemed, however, nowise injured by the operation, as, after 

 about six hours passed at the edge of the water, it resumed its 

 globose shape, and free motion about the live-box again began. 



