THE MOSSES 73 
each confine themselves to the production of one sex 
only. 
The male organs, as the “‘antheridia” may be shortly 
called, are, when fully grown, long bags, crowded with 
little cells. At the proper time, when each cell has 
obtained all the nourishment it will require to do its 
work properly, the bag splits, and the cells are squirted 
out, to go and fertilise the female organ. They can only 
travel about in water, so the moss plant 
always endeavours to collect moisture all 
over its leaves, to give them a chance of 
a voyage. Ina very little time the cell- 
wall splits, and all the protoplasm escapes. 
The wonderful fact is that the contents 
have previously formed themselves into 
a definite shape, quite different from the 
ordinary jelly lining of the cell-wall. Under the micro- 
scope the contents appear like a very small snake, with 
two whip-like lashes to its tail. With these lashes it 
drives itself along through the moisture enveloping the 
plant, and goes in search of its duties. 
Now we turn to the mother-cells of the future moss 
generation. Upon other shoots these “archegonia” have 
been developed, and they have a more complicated con- 
struction than the other organ. In shape they are like a 
very long-necked flask, such as those in which Italian 
wine is put on the table. One row of cells runs down the 
middle, and another row forms a coating all around it. At 
the swollen base the cells of the middle row expand, and 
there is formed what roughly corresponds to the seed- 
vessels of flowering plants. The cells of the centre row, 
when the mother-cell is ready to be fertilised, turn into 
mucilage, or jelly, and offer an easy passage for the snake- 
‘© ANTHERIDIA,” 
