96 EEPORT OF THE COMMISSIONER OF FISH AND FISHERIES. 



heaps, amoebiform corpuscles of the same size with precisely similar 

 granules, which corpuscles protruded processes of various form, and 

 finally much larger iormations, containing, simultaneously, both fine 

 granules and psorospermiforni structures which, moreover, showed 

 movements similar to those of the amcebfe. 



MyxicUum lieberJdihnii is, however, referred to the Gregarines. The 

 presence of a membrane is not regarded as a character indispen- 

 sable to the definition of a Gregarine, inasmuch as iu the earthworm 

 there exist forms possessing all the other characters of true Grega- 

 rines (viz, a similar nucleus, the same form and size of granules, the 

 same albuminoid substance, and the same manner of movement), and 

 also other forms showing a plain but proportionately smaller nucleus, 

 no demonstrable membrane, and none or only extremely fine granules. 

 These forms possess amoeboid movements, without, however, having the 

 ability to take up into their substance foreign bodies or coloring mat- 

 ters. These characters permit of their classification under no other 

 group than tlie Gregarines. Whether they represent young stages of 

 these or special species is immaterial. This much, however, is clear: 

 the nondemonstration of a structureless membrane does not exclude 

 them from the Gregarines. Tlie same may be said of the failure of 

 demonstration of a nucleus, as either it may exist in spite of such fail- 

 ure, or it may be destroyed by the manipulation preliminary to exam- 

 ination, or it may be present at some other period of the life-history. 

 Further, the opinion has been several times expressed that nonnucleated 

 Gregarines exist. May they not rather be amcebcBl From these 

 organisms they are delimited by their inability to take up into their 

 substance undissolved solid particles. 



In 1863 Balbiani ' expressed a decided opinion in favor of their cryp- 

 togamic nature and, regarding the spore as the adult organism, assigned 

 to the filaments the fLinction of antherozoids, a view which he supple- 

 mented in 18S3 by the designation of the sporoplasm as a " female ele- 

 ment."* He further considered the " elastic ribbons " of Myxoholus ellip- 

 soides comparable to the elaters of the Equlsetnm spore and supposed 

 that, in addition to effecting valve separation, they serve to maintain 

 the contact of two individuals during what he considered a state of 

 conjugation. These views he reaffirmed in 1806.^ 



In 1875 Schneider^ placed himself on record in opposition to the 

 current theory of the close relationship between the Myxosporidia and 

 the Gregarines, saying that: 



One knows that, under the name of Psorospp-nis, there have been united (rather 

 by reason of taxonomic necessities than by the coordination of positive data and 

 sufficiently precise elements) four things, (Gregarines, Myxosporidia, Sarcosporidia 



1 Compt. Rend. Acad. Sci. Paris, Lvii, pp. 157-161. 



2 Jonrn. de Microgr., vii, p. 278. 



3 Journ. Anat. et Physiol., iii, pp. 600-602. 



* Archiv. de Zool. Exper., Paris, iv, pp. 548, 561, and Notei? et Revue, pp. xl, xlj. 



