SOME OBSERVATIONS ON ACINETARIA. 635 
their characteristic probosces. . . . Although the further 
development of the vermiform into the proboscidiform zooids 
has not so far been determined, it is clear that little beyond 
the everting of the neck-like anterior region of the former is 
requisite to bring about such a result.” 
As regards the process of feeding, Saville Kent put forward 
a somewhat novel view (p. 850) :—‘‘ No evidence has, how- 
ever, yet been adduced showing that these filaments or the 
extensile proboscis itself possesses a similar suctorial capacity, 
nor indeed is it known in what manner the animal grasps or 
incepts its food. Pending the satisfactory elucidation of this 
most important point, it seems most reasonable to premise 
that food substances are seized by the brush-lke filamentous 
tuft or distal end of the proboscis itself, and then withdrawn 
with it into the parenchyma of the body.”’ 
As regards the ciliate embryos and the nematocysts, Saville 
Kent seems to have made no original observations; but he 
describes the latter as “ navicula-shaped bodies”? which “ are 
apparently of an adventitious nature.” 
Gruber, in his account of the Protozoa of the Harbour of 
Genoa (1884), described a new species—A cineta (Ophryo- 
dendron) trinacria—attached to a copepod. He puts 
forward no theory as to the relations between the vermiform 
and proboscidiform individuals, but notes the absence of 
nematocysts. ‘his form is shortly described under the name 
of Acineta trinacria by Daday, who found it on a copepod, 
Tisbe furcata, in the Bay of Naples, and he again appa- 
rently regards the vermiform individuals as developmental 
stages of the proboscidiform individual, although he does not 
bring forward any evidence to support this view. 
In 1886 Milne published a short paper in the ‘ Proceedings 
of the Glasgow Philosophical Society ? on Ophryodendron 
trinacria, which he described as the type of a new genus, 
Stylostoma Forrestii. The paper is of very unequal 
value, since he regards the macronucleus as an ovary which 
can be fertilised by fragments of Nucleoli; but there is one 
