CYTOPLASMIC INCLUSIONS 163 



phenomenon, since in Velomyxa the expulsion of chromatin into the 

 cytoplasm is found just prior to death (Schirch, 1914). Hindle (1910) 

 thought of this as a degeneration phenomenon in T. gamhiense. In 

 various phytoflagellates division stops when volutin is lost, and the volu- 

 tin was interpreted as a nuclear reserve (Reichenow, 1928), although no 

 direct connection between the two was demonstrated. A dehydrase has 

 been demonstrated in Trypanosoma by the leucomethylene blue method 

 and localized in the volutin granules (Krijgsman, 1936). Krijgsman, 

 however, holds to Reichenow's views of volutin as a nuclear reserve. 



Protein bodies in Oxymonas dinwrpha. which are negative to Feul- 

 gen's stain and stain with either basic or acid dyes (i.e., not metachromat- 

 ic), have been called volutin granules (Connell, 1930), although they 

 are not volutin in the sense used by Reichenow. However, in Oxymonas, 

 as in the phytoflagellates of Reichenow's experiments, division ceases 

 when these granules are exhausted. Since the division stages of Oxymonas 

 are also the flagellated stage, the protein granules could be explained 

 as reserve bodies for the expenditure of energy by these organelles. 

 Neither explanation has adequate proof, since each merely correlates 

 obvious phenomena. 



Volutin is thus a term which has no standard usage, but wherever 

 microchemical tests have been made volutin has been found to contain 

 proteins, nucleic acid, or other similar materials. Since the available evi- 

 dence shows that it behaves as a reserve material, it seems to me to be 

 convenient to include it as one of the various types of protein reserves 

 and to eliminate the terms volutin and metachromatin, neither of which 

 seems to have been used consistently by protozoologists. 



The macronuclei of many ciliates contain one or more large, intensely 

 basophilic bodies lodged in vacuoles among the closely packed granules of 

 chromatin ( Chakravarty, 1936; MacLennan, 1936). Since their num- 

 ber and size vary, it has been suggested that these are reserve materials 

 (Kazancev, 1928). In Ichthyophthirius these granules have been traced 

 in living ciliates from the macronucleus through temporary breaks in the 

 macronuclear membrane into the cytoplasm (Fig. dd) where they are 

 stored until resorption and utilization occurs in the encysted stages (Mac- 

 Lennan, 1936). These bodies take both acid and basic dyes even more 

 strongly than chromatin and, unlike the chromatin, are negative to 

 Feulgen's reaction and Macallum's tests for iron. These granules first 



