308 W. ARCHER. 



summer months the young animals in the author^s " little 

 aquarium " continued to grow in size, and the nuclei to 

 increase in numbers, most probably by division, and all the 

 mature characters became by degrees assumed — thus closing 

 the cycle of development. 



Whilst thus Schulze's observations in the main coincide 

 with those of Cienkowski and of Schneider, they would seem 

 to fail to establish the views of the latter observer that a 

 copulation of distinct animals is followed by a subsequent 

 act of fertilization by means of conjugation of nuclei within 

 the cyst. 



Still the fusion of several individuals is no very uncommon 

 phenomenon, and during the encysted state a diminution of 

 the number of nuclei no doubt would seem to take place ; 

 Schulze, however, would suggest that is is more likely they 

 may themselves perish than that the lessening of their num- 

 bers may be due to becoming mutually coalesced. 



Professor Schulze refers casually to a form encountered by 

 him in a bason of the Botanic Garden in Gratz, agreeing in 

 most points with Actmospharkmi Eichhornii, but is con- 

 siderably smaller — the largest being -pVinm. in diameter — it 

 likewise always showed but one pulsating vacuole, and lastly 

 the limits between endo- and ecto-sarc was not so sharply 

 marked off as in the ordinary typical form. 



One most suggestively suppose that this was but a young 

 and but partially developed representative of the ordinary 

 form. 



Touching the power of spontaneous fusion of the body- 

 substance of several distinct examples of Actinosph(sriwn 

 Eichhornii, I might just momentarily call attention to the 

 remarkably large sarcodic patches or masses met with by 

 myself on two or three occasions in some deep pools in the 

 county of Westmeath, and which seemed to have most likely so 

 originated .1 There were no pseudopodia, no differentiation of 

 the two kinds of alveolar region, but the whole was uni- 

 formly alveolar with numerous nuclei, and an outer rather 

 narrow, clear, hyaline, homogeneous, sharply bounded mo- 

 bile border (ectosarc?), comparable to the corresponding region 

 of an Amoeba was present; the great patches, sometimes, as 

 much as ^ or even \- of an inch in diameter, when pressed out 

 under the weight of a covering-glass, occasionally appeared 

 broken into more or less large holes capable of recoalescing 

 and thus becoming obliterated. Perhaps these indeed but repre- 

 sented the preliminary state of reprotluction of this species de- 

 scribed by the foregoing authors, and the sarcode masses 

 ^ 'Quart. Journ. Micros. Sci.,'ii. s., vol. xi, p. 101, 



