27 



supposed to havo boon detected by observers, and from analogy, 

 we miglit expect such to bo the case. The infusoria always 

 possessed them, and they wore even supposed to be present in 

 the diatom and dosmid. The sponge was invested with a sarcode, 

 resembling that composing the entire bed of the Ameba, and 

 this sarcode had tlie property of fulfilling all the functions of 

 digestion, assimilation, reproduction, and perhaps of sensation. 

 The entire sponge may bo likened to one great stomach, the 

 sarcode in many particulars resembling the numerous membranes 

 of the higher animals. The particles of organic matter brought 

 in contact -with it by the currents, induced in the incurrent canals 

 of the sponge, wore assimilated and partially digested before 

 passing out at the cloacal cavities. The growth of the sarcode 

 hud been noticed by Mr. Fullagar, and the Amoeba-like projec- 

 tion described. It had, moi-eover, been discovered by him that 

 the spicules were produced from the sarcode, and were at first 

 bulged in the centre. These spicules were composed of fine 

 silica, though invested by the animal matter. The sponge then 

 only derived, nutriment by means of the sarcode, but separated 

 the silica from the water, and built up with it its characteristic 

 spicules ; these differed in the ovaria, which had also been 

 carefully noticed by Mr. Fullagar. The sarcode in the sponge 

 builds uji its own peculiar skeleton in like manner to which the 

 Foraminifera build up their wonderful shells. It is wonderful 

 to observe how nature uses the same means, and these apparently 

 similar and simple, and produces man, the highest of the animal.", 

 and the sponge the lowest. As we approach the higher animals 

 so do we find a greater complexity and separation of various 

 functions. Thus the brain in man, from whence proceeds the 

 nervous powers, is in the lower spread over the entire animal, or, 

 more correctly, collected in reservoirs in its diif erent parts. And 

 the sarcode of the sponge contains the vital functions of many 

 separate organs in the higher animals. 



March \st, 1877. 



Rapludes as botanical characters. — Mr. Hammond, of Milton 

 Chapel, exhibited u scries of slides prepared from the Butcher's 

 Broom (Ruscus aculeatus), and well adapted for microscopic 

 examination. Before the ]escarches of the Hon. Secretary (Mr. 

 Gulliver, r.R.S ), all micrcscopic saline crystals in plants were 

 called llaphidcs, so us to confuse very ditfcrcnt objects and to 

 destroy their value as characters in systematic botany; and this 

 error is continued in the last edition of the " Micrographic Diction- 

 ary " and other works in which 'wc might expect more regard to 

 correctness. Even in our systematic works of botany, to whicli the 

 facts would be of great value, no use whatever is made of the 



