1885.] NEW-YORK MICROSCOPICAL SOCIETY. 153 



fusorian. The endoplasm, however, is colorless and, when forced 

 out by pressure, or when set free by dififluence after the creature's 

 death, is seen to enclose numerous angular and colorless plates 

 mingled with many smaller granules of similar character, the 

 largest being perhaps two or three times the size of the presum- 

 ably symbiotic alg?e. These endoplasmic plates (Fig. 2) are flat, 

 irregular, structureless, and somewhat refringent ; they are prob- 

 ably amylaceous. If, therefore, we may judge from the form, 

 position, and arrangement of the chlorophyll corpuscles, they 

 would seem to present an excellent example of symbiosis. But 

 the statement is made that " The animals (Phytozoa, as they 

 may be termed) renounce their independent life and allow them- 

 selves to be entirely supported by their parasites, when once the 

 green or yellow algas have entered their tissues and have multi- 

 plied there sufiiciently. They absorb no more solid organic 

 substances, although they are perfectly able to do so, but are 

 entirely comparable, from the morphological point of view, to 

 animals devoid of chlorophyll. This life of algae in common 

 with animals is one of the strangest things which can be con- 

 ceived. Morphologically it is the algae which are the parasites, 

 but physiologically the animals."^ So far as some, at least, of 

 the Infusoria are concerned, the truth of this statement seems 

 doubtful. The species which I have named Leucophtys emargi- 

 nata is a case in point. The enclosed chlorophyll corpuscles, 

 the symbiotic algae, if they are such, could hardly be more 

 abundant, unless the entire sarcode should be filled with them. 

 They certainly appear to be sufficiently multiplied, yet the In- 

 fusorian is voracious. It gorges itself with diatoms. Small 

 Infusoria are eagerly accepted, and, in one instance, I have 

 witnessed the capture of a full-sized -P«raz«<^««?// aurelia, Miill., 

 which, although visible to the naked eye, was powerless to resist 

 the current that swept it down the peristome-field and through 

 the capacious oral aperture. The excrementitious matter forms 

 a correspondingly large mass of empty diatom frustules, frag- 

 mentary remains and granules, surrounded by a colorless proto- 

 plasmic envelope. 



The assertion that the green coloring matter of all these lower 

 forms is symbiotic, it is equally difficult to accept. In several 

 Infusoria the coloration is diffused, and not collected into gran- 



1. Jour. Roy. Mic. Soc, II. (1882), pp. 243-4. 



