PROGRESS OF MICROSCOPICAL SCIENCE. 179 



worse a name to revive than " Vermes " is sufficiently to condemn it. 

 3. Whether the cavity in a sea-anemone is all stomach or partly peri- 

 visceral may admit of dispute, hut " Coelenterata " only affirms that 

 the animal is hollow ; and if the term suggests either interpretation, 

 it rather lends itself to Professor Hackel's. 4. If another word must 

 be invented to apply to Anthozoa (or " Coralla ") and Hydrozoa (or 

 " HydromedusaB ") in common, Huxley's " Nematophora," suggested 

 in 1851, is just as good as " AcalephaB," which was used in a more 

 restricted sense by Cuvier. But it is not impossible that before long 

 neither term will be properly exclusive of sponges. 



Tlie Reproduction of the Saprolegnice. — A very able paper on this 

 subject appears in ' Hofmeister's Handbook ' (vol ii., cap. v.), from the 

 pen of Dr. Anton de Bary. This is translated very fully by Mr. M. 

 C. Cooke, M. A., in the February number of his ' Grevillea.' It says 

 that the existence of a sexual generation in a certain number of Fungi 

 has latterly been demonstrated. " The Mucorini offer an example of a 

 copulation which, in my idea, and that of M. Hofmeister, is a particu- 

 lar form of this mode of generation ; and, since Micheli and Bulliard a 

 multitude of Fungi are, at any rate, supposed to possess sexes, flowers, 

 anthers, &c. We will first quote the Saprolegniae, the sexual organs 

 and the fecundation of which were first discovered by M. Pringsheim, 

 and described by him. In the types which may be imagined to be monse- 

 cious, such as the Saprolegnia monoica, the Pytldum and our Aphano- 

 myces, the female organs consist of oogonia, that is to say, of cells 

 which are at first globose, and rich in plastic matters, which most 

 generally terminate short branches of the mycelium, and which are 

 but rarely seen in an interstitial position. The constitutive membrane 

 of the adult oogonium in Saprolegnia monoica is re-absorbed in a great 

 number of points, and is there pierced with rounded holes. At the 

 same time • the plasma is divided into a larger or smaller number 

 of distinct portions which are rounded into little spheres, and separate 

 from the walls of the conceptacle, in order to group themselves in its 

 centre, w T here they float in an aqueous liquid. These gonospheres 

 are then smooth and bare ; on their surface there exists no membrane 

 of the nature of cellulose. In the genera Pytldum and Aphanomyces, 

 and in some of the Saprolegnice all the plasma of the oogonia is 

 condensed into one solitary central sphere, surrounded by liquid. 

 During the formation of the oogonium, there arise from its pedicel, 

 or from neighbouring filaments, slight, cylindrical, curved branches, 

 sometimes twisted around the support of the oogonium, and which all 

 tend towards this organ. Their superior extremity is intimately 

 applied to its wall, then ceases to be elongated, becomes slightly 

 inflated, and is limited below by a septum ; it is then an oblong cell, 

 slightly curved, filled with protoplasm, and intimately applied to the 

 oogonium ; in one word, an anther idium, or the organ of the male sex. 

 Each oogonium possesses one or several antheridia. Towards the 

 time when the gonospheres are formed, it may be remarked that each 

 antheridium sends to the interior of the oogonium one or several 

 tubular processes which have crossed its side wall, and which open at 

 their extremity in order to discharge their contents. These, while 



