DUBLIN MICROSCOPICAL CLUB. 239 



which that writer had stated that the tetrasporic fruit had not been 

 noticed or figured in any work published in Great Britain ; Dr. 

 Wright, however, pointed out that this was not so, but that Dr. 

 Harvey and Miss Gifford had long since recorded it, as already 

 fully detailed in last number of this Journal. 



Another "keaded^^ Bacterian and note thereon. — Mr. Archer 

 wished once again to draw attention to another example of the 

 gloeogenous, still (" Zooglcea") condition of the bacterian which 

 he had exhibited at last meeting of the Club, then both in the 

 same and in the active moving state, and this the more especially 

 as he desired to place side by side therewith a specimen or 

 gloeogenous group of the very same "species," "form" or 

 "thing," which he. had just noticed on a slide of Herr Otto 

 Nordstedt's mounting, put-up for a single specimen of a Stau- 

 rastrum, the bacterian being there, of course, quite unwittingly 

 and accidentally. This was absolutely, and in its (granted, 

 very few) details precisely, one and the same thing to which 

 Mr. Archer had previously drawn attention. It was very pretty 

 to see how nicely it had " mounted" and maintained its ordinary 

 aspect. If it were met by an observer in the condition of both 

 examples for the first time it would, without doubt, be naturally 

 a priori regarded (as before mentioned) as an alga, and its bac- 

 terian nature would hardly suggest itself. Generally speaking, 

 no heads (or " spores " ?) are then visible on the little threads, 

 but Mr. Archer had seen gloeogenous specimens showing the 

 heads more or less grown, and in different examples of difierent 

 sizes. Mr. Archer was glad to be able to show the form in ques- 

 tion (in both native and " foreign " examples !) simultaneously 

 with another " species " to which he now drew the Club's atten- 

 tion, doubtless closely resembling the preceding, but yet different. 

 Here the little threads were, microscopically speaking, consider- 

 ably thinner, ofa bluer tint, rigid, likewise "headed," but the heads 

 considerably more minute. Their movements were far more lazy ; 

 the pin-like examples might be said, so to speak, merely to totter 

 about. Of this form Mr. Archer had not been able to see any 

 gloeogenous state, so far as he could make out, but on the other 

 hand he drew attention to certain slender filaments in the same 

 gathering of great tenuity, bearing along their length little bluish 

 bead-like bodies at even distances, distributed in pairs, suggesting 

 the breaking up of the filament into short pieces between the 

 beads, which would thus stand as the "heads." At other times 

 filaments could be found in still the same gathering, showing at 

 shorter, but likewise even, distances pairs of beads extremely 

 minute and pairs of the ordinary size alternating with each other. 

 To say the least, the moving forms, slowly wabbling about in their 

 vacillating manner (so difierent from the vivacious and restless 

 up-and-down fidget of the preceding form, though there were 

 none of those in the free and active state to-night), were extremely 

 like the several portions of the filament, as desscribed, mutually 

 detached and become independent. Their colour, especially the 



