96 HICKS, ON VEGETABLE AM(EBOID BODIES. 



23. Certain forms of connective tissue may result from 

 changes taking place in nerves and vessels. The modification 

 of connective tissue met with in the papillae of taste and touch, 

 is probahlj-, in great part, the remains of nervous structure 

 which is incapable of being removed by absorption. Certain 

 forms of connective tissue are produced by germinal matter but 

 some varieties consist of the remains of structure v^'hich were 

 active at an earlier, period of life. 



24. In some situations in which ' areolar tissue corpuscles' 

 are said to exist, and to form a special system of tubes and 

 cells connected with the clistrihution of nutrient juices, the 

 following bodies may be recognised; nuclei of nerves, nuclei of 

 capillaries, nuclei oi lohite fibrous tissue, nuclei of yelloiv fibrous 

 tissue, nuclei oifat cells, lymph, and tvhite blood-corpuscles. 

 Each of these masses of germinal matter is connected with the 

 production of its own peculiar tissue or formed material, and 

 there are no cells and tubes to be demonstrated which are 

 concerned in the distribution of nutrient matter to these 

 textures. The nutrient fluid permeates the tissue generally, 

 and each mass of germinal matter selects its proper pabulum 

 and undergoes increase, while the older particles undergo con- 

 Tersion into tissue. 



Observations on Vegetable Amceboid Bodies. 

 By J. Braxton Hicks, M.D., F.L.S., &c. 



In a communication published in ^Microscopical Trans.,' 

 April, 1860, I pointed out an amceboid condition in the 

 zoospore of Volvox globator, which I had observed some 

 years previously, and compared this observation with some 

 of a kindred nature by other naturalists. 



In the autumn of 1860 I had an excellent opportunity of 

 verifying my notes, and of tracing the change apparently a 

 step further. Out of a large number of Volvox, collected in 

 the South of England, I scarcely found one in which the 

 state alluded to did not exist ; in many, twenty of these 

 amceboid bodies could be counted, moving about immediately 

 beneath the transparent sphere. That they could not have 

 derived their origin from any similar or dissimilar existence 

 outside the Volvox, nor could liave themselves entered within 

 the sphere by solution, became very evident from observing 

 the diflcrent stages by which the ordinary zoospore gradually 



