60 E. H. STRICKLAND 
drew attention to the similarity between the polar capsule and 
its contained filament to the nematocysts of coelenterates. He, 
however, did not assign to it a similar urticating function, but 
suggested the now generally accepted theory that the filament 
serves to attach the spore to new hosts or to their food. It 
should, however be borne in mind that the filament, so far as 
known, is not evaginated till the spore has been taken into the 
gut of a new host, a fact which appears to lessen considerably, . 
if not to entirely nullify the use of this organ, if its function be 
such as Biitschli surmised. The filament is soon detached from 
the spore, leaving a small opening in the shell through which 
the binucleate cytoplasmic contents escape. Stempell (’09) finds 
that in N. bombycis, where four nuclei are present in the spore, 
only two of them pass out of the shell with cytoplasm, the other 
pair remaining behind and degenerating. The small free body 
thus liberated is the germ, and its nuclei soon fuse to form the 
single nucleus of the planont. 
CLASSIFICATION OF THE MICROSPORIDIA 
Stempell ’09 has recently revised the classification of the 
Microsporidia as follows: 
Family 1: Nosematidae. The vegetative stage is intracellu- 
lar and consists of unicellular dividing meronts. 
a. Genus Nosema (Niigeli ’57). Each meront gives rise to 
a single spore. 
b. Genus Thelohania (Henneguy and Thélohan ’92). Each 
meront gives rise through a sporont to eight spores. 
c. Genus Gurleya (Doflein ’98). Each meront gives rise 
through a sporont to four spores. 
Family 2: Pleistophoridae. The completely mature vegetative 
stage consists of multicellular, often amoeboid, motile meronts. 
a. Genus Pleistophora (Gurley ’93). The vegetative stage 
passes into rounded sporonts from which many spores arise. 
b. Genus Maronia (Stempell ’09). Spores arise through 
endogenous budding within the protoplasm of the amoeboid 
vegetative stage. 
