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IX. — Infusorial Ch'cuit of Generations. 



By Theod. C. Hilgakd. 



The soft and " naked," transparent and really animal* forms here 

 to be considered, have some very striking and peculiar features in 

 common. Their bodies are delicate, transparent, gelatinous, granu- 

 lar, and evidently sexless, although studded with reproductive yolks 

 and locomotive molecules of the most varied description. On con- 

 tact with air, when drying up, they do not leave behind any coherent 

 coat or tissue whatever ; but so soon as they are affected by incipient 

 exsiccation, at once, by some sudden internal commotion, as if 

 melting away, they become liquid, and entirely dissolve into a 

 " sauce " of quite uniform, hyaline molecules, about o oVo lio-e in 

 diameter. They are all evidently immature forms, subject to a vast 

 cycle of progressive and retrograde developments, and infinitely mul- 

 tiplying the molecular germs at every individual dissolution.! A 

 httle salt, glycerine, or sugar destroys their present form ; but they 

 seem to be hardly afi'ected by morphia or atropia, even in strong 

 solutions. 



It is this feature of the non-endurance in drying up, which 

 renders it at once certain that no such sarcode bodies can continue 

 to exist in integro, when exposed to the full heat of summer, on a 

 cracking dry tub, or on a roof, hkewise as torrid as a blazing July 

 sun can render it within four weeks. The same applies to all the 

 confervaceous, palmellaceous, protococcous, desmidiaceous, &c., fresh- 

 water spawns, of true Mosses ; which, once collapsed by drought, 

 rarely continue growth in a progressive sense. With the exception 

 oi i]ie\v common "nostoc" phase | (specially adapted to endure even 

 excessive dryness), they " revive " only by starting anew from very 

 reduced, but immensely multitudinous constituent particles of their 



* i. e. exclusive of all the chlorophyll-endowed, silica-coated, and automatons, 

 or cellular cell-like sarcodic bodies, and also the clear and vibrionic forms which 

 belong to the algoid bryaceous developments. They are partly classed as green 

 " Infusoria," and also constitute the " Chlorosperme;e " of " Algse." 



t The same doubtless applies to a small " Stentor Eoe," seen hovering up and 

 down in water taken from ponds, aquaria, &c. It is of a hazy white colour, 

 scarcely perceptible to the naked eye, and remarkable for never touching the 

 surface. When jjlaced under the microscope, in a drop exposed to air, this animal 

 germ (in shape resembling a Cyprea or a coffee bean) is seen violently throwing 

 open its "cloak" or mantle, exhibiting an intense ciliary (^fingered) vibratory 

 action, all over the interior surface. It then throws out hyaline constitutive brood- 

 balls of various sizes, each endowed with the same '''■fingered " action — (as if " kneaded 

 about " in invisible hands) — and ultimately entirely y?otus apart into such fleshy cilia, 

 on leaving the intestine behind. 



X This form of self-multiplying, serial chlorophyll bead-strings enveloped in a 

 foliaceous slime is common to Lichens (particularly the genus Collema) and various 

 brooding phases of the algoid {chlorospermous) moss-spawns. With the Lichens, 

 the internal chlorophyll of their thallus often develops, as is well known, in similar 

 bead-strings, borne on the end of colourless (fungoid) tissue-fibres ; in a manner 

 also represented in the anatomy of Blodgcttia confervoides, in Harvey's ' Nereis.' 



