NOTES ON A -GREGARINE OF THE EARTHWORM. 425 
observer also suggests that the granules are a supply of food- 
substance for the gregarine, used up when necessary, in refer- 
ence to which view I may mention that in a teased specimen 
containing chiefly sporoblasts, among which were a few 
granules, the latter appeared oval or irregular in shape, as if 
undergoing a process of corrosion and absorption. 
The granules gave the usual paraglycogen reaction with 
iodine and sulphuric acid, swelling up in the strong acid in a 
very curious manner, witha distinctly double-contoured appear- 
ance, and finally dissolving (fig. 3 7). They dissolved rapidly and 
entirely in potash, even when diluted to 1 per cent. In many 
preparations the granules appeared to form the whole substance 
of the animal (fig. 2), but in others a certain amount of form- 
less protoplasm was visible among them, and no doubt this is 
really present in all cases. It was well shown in a preparation 
stained with gentian violet and orange, the protoplasm taking 
the latter colour, the granules the former. In many cases 
sections showed a number of deeply-staining spots among the 
granules, as if the protoplasm had collected together into 
nodes; and in one series a distinct network was visible (fig. 4), 
due no doubt, as Wolters holds, to the action of reagents. 
Capsule.—The question of the amount of protoplasm 
existing in the gregarine beside the paraglycogen granules 
seems intimately connected with a curious appearance seen in 
the greater part of the series of sections of mature gregarines 
which I cut; this was a ring of staining substance which went 
through as many as sixteen sections of 5 u thickness, gradually 
contracting and disappearing. It was therefore a hollow 
sphere, and it contained within itself matter in no respect 
differing from the rest of the animal’s body (figs. 2a, 26). It 
did not present any sharply-defined outline, such as would 
suggest a containing-membrane, but appeared rather to be 
a continuous “capsule ” of protoplasm within the gregarine, 
which was in some cases centrally, in others eccentrically placed. 
It seems possible that the appearance may be caused by the 
reagents employed driving the fluid protoplasm before them 
from the sides inwards as they penetrate, thus forming a ring, 
