104 MARINE INFUSORIA. 



animalcules of this species are separable into zooids of two denomina- 

 tions. Both are seated on short pedicles, and possess, in the one instance, 

 a simple vermiform contour, with a more attenuated distal termination, 

 and in the other have a cup-shaped basal region or body-mass, from the 

 centre of which is produced an attenuate highly extensile and retractile 

 proboscidiform organ, the apex of the same supporting a fascicle of minute 

 tentacle-like processes, which, when the proboscis is exerted, are 

 maintained in a state of active motion. Among the examples obtained 

 at Falmouth, proboscidiform zooids were alone encountered, and the 

 illustration of the vermiform zooid here given is reproduced from 

 Mr. Hincks's figures. In two other species of this remarkable genus, 

 obtained and examined by myself in the Channel Islands, 0. sertularite, 

 St. W., and 0. multicapitatum, S. K., both proboscidiform and vermiform 

 zooids occurred in abundance, and are temporarily united in the same 

 animalcule. The last-named type, Ophryodendron multicapitatum, n. sp.,is 

 especially noteworthy, inasmuch as a single zooid may possess as many 

 as three or even four proboscidiform appendages.* Although the 

 various species of Ophryodendron are usually assigned to the section of 

 the Tentaculifera, the singular proboscis-like organs being presumed to 

 represent a modification of the tentacula of the ordinary Acinetae, 

 the true significance and morphological position of these very remarkable 

 beings has yet to be elucidated. So far as speculation is assisted by the 

 facts of embryological development, the evidence is certainly in favour of 

 their Acinete affinities, the internally produced embryos in the case of 

 Ophryodendron abietinum being shown by Claperede and Lachmann to 

 accord essentially with those of many normal representatives of the 

 genera Acineta and Podophrya, and to exhibit in common with the same 

 an Hypotrichous plan of ciliation. 



SEEDS AND THEIE GERMINATION DYNAMICALLY 

 CONSIDERED. 



BY F. T. MOTT, F.R.G.S. 



The normal life-history of a phanerogamous plant is the history of 

 the development of a seed, through the phases of stem, leaf, and flower, 

 returning finally to the seed again. The seed which terminates that 

 epoch always differs from the seed which began it, since it must inevit- 

 ably bear in its constitution some record of the active life of the plant. 

 When in its turn it develops into active life again, the new life-history 

 will be differentiated from the previous one by whatever of its own 

 special experiences it left behind it in that minute storehouse of energy. 



* A delineation of this remarkable species is added for the purpose of 

 comparison. See Plate IV., Figs. 15 and 16. 



