386 Cc. H. MARTIN. 
The body of the bud exhibits curious englenoid changes of 
shape, and in this way, with the aid of its tentacle, the bud 
can travel considerable distances up the stalk of the 
Hphelota which it is about to infect. After penetrating its 
host the tentacle seems to be completely withdrawn, and the 
bud seems to grow very rapidly to reach the size characteristic 
of the internal parasitic form (about ‘04 long by ‘03 broad), 
the life-cycle being thus completed. 
The Hffect of the Parasite upon the Host.— 
Metchnikoff, in his ‘ Lectures on the Comparative Pathology 
of Inflammation’ (p. 27), has already put forward the view 
as regards Spherophrya parameciorum, that “Pour se 
maintenir dans Vintériur du protoplasma des infusoires les 
acinétiens doivent exercer quelque influence paralysante sur 
Vaction digestive. I] est probable que ces parasites sécrétent 
quelque substance toxique, parce que’on a vu souvent divers 
infusoires tomber dans un état de paralysie et mourir a la 
suite des attaques des acinétiens libres. Hn végétant dan 
Pintérieur des infusoires, les acinétiens parasitiques provoquent 
une dégenéréscence du noyau, qui se fragmente en grains 
ronds.” 
As far as I could see from sections of infected Ephelota, 
the effect of the parasite was far more marked upon the 
cytoplasm than on the nucleus of its host, and it is only in 
later stages of infection, when the cytoplasm has been 
reduced to a thin shell surrounding the mass of the parasites, 
that one finds traces of degeneration in the nucleus, the 
granules of chromatin running together to form darkly- 
staining lumps. It is, I think, a fact of some importance 
that here, where there is no direct absorption of the chromatin 
of its prey, the parasitic Acinetarian is quite free from so- 
called “ tinctin-kérper”’ of Plate. 
Systematic Position.—From the account given of the 
adult structure of the Tachyblaston it must, | think, be 
regarded as closely related to the family Urnulina, and not as 
in any way related to the parasitic Spherophrya described by 
