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TRANSLATIONS. 



Observations on Noctiluca {miliaris ?). By Dr. W. 

 BuscH.* 



The following observations upon the structure and repro- 

 duction of a species of Noctiluca were made by Dr. Buscli in 

 the year 1849, and will be found in his work cited below, 

 which was published in 1851. With respect to the structure 

 of the animal, they perhaps present nothing in addition to 

 what has already been made known to our readers in the 

 Papers by Mr. Huxley and by Dr. Webb, in the present Volume 

 of the ' Journal ;' but as regards the reproduction and de- 

 velopment of the Noctiluca, they afford several new points, 

 and it is for that reason that we have thought it might be 

 useful here to introduce them, and the more so, as it would 

 seem these remarks by Dr. Busch had escaped the notice of 

 Krohn,t as well as of Mr. Huxley:}: and Dr. Webb.§ The 

 species noticed by Dr. Busch occurred in great abundance in 

 the Bay of Malaga, and is regarded by him, but we think, 

 perhaps, erroneously, as distinct from N. miliaris. He 

 terms it N punctata, from the circumstance that the integu- 

 ment was covered with very numerous minute pigment-points ; 

 but the resemblance of his figure to N. miliaris is so striking, 

 and the structure, so far as he describes it, so closely identical 

 with that of the latter, that no doubt can be entertained as to 

 the identity of the two forms. 



" These animals, as is well known, consist of a rounded disc of a gela- 

 tinous consistence, like that of the Medusae. At the upper part (fig. 1, a, 

 PI. X., Mic. Jour.), the borders are curved inwards and downwards, so 

 that, whilst on the under side the contour is continued uniuterruptedlj', 

 a sort of hilus is formed above, from the middle of which a straight, sharp- 

 bordered rod, h, extends directly inwards and downwards, being prolonged 

 into an acute point. At the point where the above-mentioned curved 

 borders meet is situated a brown, round body, c [nucleus], from which 

 numerous branched fibres extend towards the periphery. The solitary 

 motile organ of the animal arises from about the same point. This is a 

 band-like filament, d, about as long as the diameter of the body of the 

 creature, and exhibiting numerous transverse lines, which give it a striated 

 appearance, but never extend across the entire width of the filament. The 



* Abstracted from ' Beobachtung. iib. Anat. u. Entwickl. einiger wir- 

 bellosen Seethiere,' p. 103. Berlin, 1851. 

 t Wiegmann's Archiv., 1852, p. 77. 



X ' Quarterly Journal of Microscopical Science,' Vol. iii., p. 49. 

 sS Ibid., p. 102. 



