28 



LECTURE II. 



cella and some other species, we liave examples of spontaneous divi- 

 sion in the longitudinal 

 direction, which com- 

 mences at the mouth {Jig. 

 5. b.), and extends {ib. 

 c, d.), to the irritable and 

 contractile stem, from 

 which one or both of the 

 new-formed individuals 

 detach themselves (ib. e, 

 f.). Both the longitudinal 

 Nassuia. and transverse mode of 



fission may take place in the same species (as in the Glaucoma, 

 figured in Jig. 6, 3 — 8.), and as in the Chilodon cucullulus above 

 cited. Colin* observed, in Loxodes Bursaria, that the two indivi- 

 duals produced by longitudinal fission had almost the same size and 

 shape as the previous single individual ; whilst the two resulting 

 from transverse fission seemed longer to remain as mere halves or 

 mutilated individuals. Sometimes one of the individuals or halves 

 from the longitudinal bisection will set up another act of fission be- 

 fore it has quite separated from its fellow. The circulation of the 

 green globules is arrested during the process of spontaneous fission. f 

 In some species this spontaneous fission, which corresponds in so 

 interesting a manner with the earliest phenomenon in the develop- 

 ment of the ovum in the higher animals %, is arrested before its com- 

 15 pletion, but the partially separated individuals 

 continue in organic connection and form 

 compound animals, sometimes in the form of 

 long chains, sometimes branched, sometimes 

 expanding to form a spherical bag, as in the 

 well-known Volvox globator, which was long 

 deemed a single individual of a peculiar 

 species. New spherical groups of Volvoces 



* xvm. 



f Beccaria, who first saw a Polygastrian in the act of dividing, supposed it to be 

 two in copidation. Saussixre, in 1765, first recognised its real character. 



% This analogy I pointed out in illustration of the cleavage -process of the ova 

 of the Medusa in my " Lectures on Generation," delivered in 1 840. It is alluded 

 to in the following passage in Dr. M. Barry's " Memoir on the Nucleus of the Animal 

 and Vegetable Cell," 8vo. 1847. "Between the appearances presented by the 

 mammiferous germ during the passage of the ovum through the oviduct, and cer- 

 tain infusoria, includmg the Volvox globator as figured by Ehrcnberg, the resem- 

 blance first mentioned by Professor Owen is so remarkable that wc cannot avoid 

 the belief, that the same process opei'ates in both." 



