president's ADDRESS. 1 05 



intercellular substance, but tliat many of tlie cells also exhibit 

 traces of starch among their greenish granular contents; and 

 some spherical cells appear to contain nothing else but a trans- 

 lucent amyliferous fluid." 



So likewise, Professor Allman, in a short notice on the endo- 

 chrome {chlorophyll) in Confei-va Linum^ which he read at the 

 British Association in 1853,* "proved that the green matter," 

 or endochrome in that species of conferva^ "is immediately con- 

 tained in distinct cells, and that it surrounds in each cell a pecu- 

 liarly formed starch-granule.''' 



If, therefore, starch — which is so essentially a vegetable in- 

 gredient — be actually developed within the Spongilla, it would 

 evidently confirm the vegetahility of that sort of sponge. 



In the year 1838 — nearly twenty years ago — I, moreover, no- 

 ticed in my paper in the " Linnean Transactions," that it was 

 probable that some of the bodies then referred to the Infusorian 

 Animalcules, would turn out, on further investigation, to be only 

 plants. This, indeed, seems now to have taken place with regard 

 to the well known Volvox Glohator, or "Globe Animal;" for Dr. 

 Cohn, in a communication made last autumn, to the French 

 Academy of Sciences,f mentions that it probably belongs to the 

 Algce. He observes — each spherule within it, as in the Gonia^ 

 and other Volvocinece, is not so much an individual, strictly so 

 termed, as a society of individuals. The Volvox has two distinct 

 methods of reproduction, which are similar to those of all Algce. 

 M. Cohn describes the reproductive globule, and the chlorophyll 

 contained within it, as giving place to starchy and to an oil of a 

 red or orange colour. Also, many more of the Infusoria, espe- 

 cially the Desmicliece,\ which Ehrenberg considered as animals of 

 a high and complex organisation, have been proved to be vegeta- 

 bles ; and these facts have been ascertained with greater accuracy 

 by the use of the modern improved and more powerful micros- 

 copes. Some Naturalists have now classed many of the Infusoria 

 under the appropriate term of Protozoa, or the " first animals," 



* See p. 62, " Report of the British Association," for 1853. 

 t Vide " Comptes Rcndus," for December 1, 1856, p. 1054. 



X Hassall, *' Brit. Freshwater Algce," vol, 1, p. 39, says, " Iodine demonstrates the 

 presence of starch, in abundance, in the contents of their cells." 



