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cover, to decide as to its nature, and yet it is widely distributed 
in the deeper pools in suitable situations. 4 priori, it cannot be 
a “spore” or ‘‘ ovum,” as it constantly repeats itself by transverse 
self-division ; the elliptic figure becomes cut transversely into a 
“fioure-of-8” by a constriction, at first shallow, then going deeper 
and deeper, until presently the two new “cells” (so to call them) 
are held together by a mere narrow thread, eventually separating; 
it does not seem to disclose a nucleus. It occurs of various sizes : 
breadth of large specimen, say about ~4+, of an inch; length, one 
and a half to three times the breadth; and, indeed, it would 
appéar, when a good gathering is kept some time in the house, as 
if the individuals diminished in size, seemingly due to a dwindling 
down in the growth of the new ‘‘cells.” The larger ordinary 
examples appear sometimes to have a very slight, from side-to-side, 
automatic vibratory kind of motion, but generally this is very 
faint or absent; when a quantity of them is placed on a slide, 
their tendency is to roll down by gravitation, and become accu- 
mulated at the lower margin of the slide, thus seeming to move up 
the field. For want of any special appellation, Mr. Archer, in 
order to put hands readily upon it amongst other bottles, had 
frequently temporarily labelled gatherings containing this produc- 
tion simply “80,” the first figure symbolising the dividing state, 
the other the ordinary elliptic form. Would such a crude descrip- 
tion suffice to convey an idea so as to gain an opinion as to the 
identity or nature of this ¢hing, or would a drawing be requisite 
to elicit such from some more experienced observer? It may be, 
indeed, some commonplace enough affair, and a marvel here with 
us only just so long as we are ignorant. But in relation to the 
phenomenon of motion and no visible motory organs existent, 
what Mr. Archer desired now to draw the Club’s attention to was, 
as mentioned, what appeared to be a condition or stage of the 
organism just referred to. This moving thing, of greatly smaller 
size (say, about =>/5, of an inch in diameter, and three or four times 
longer), has a more elongate and tapering figure, but contains 
granules quite alike in colour and nature, of the same shiny aspect 
and opaque greyish starchy appearance. They are, however, 
fewer; the larger ones at the middle, two notably larger than the 
rest, and smaller ones at each end beyond these, and a few smaller 
still sometimes filling up the interstices, the whole surrounded by 
a similar smooth, pellucid, bluish-tinted envelope. Now, these 
bodies move along with great vigour, in a more or less straight 
direction, now one end foremost, now the other, at “random,” 
pretty rapidly revolving on their longitudinal axis as they 
progress, but no evidence of any cilia or flagella, or other motory 
organ. If this organism represent the Bacteriwm triloculare 
(Duj.), then Dujardin’s figure cannot be accounted good; his 
form is represented like a short, somewhat tapering confervoid 
filament, with very short joints and septa exactly transverse. 
Moreover, one figure gives a short flagellum, but this latter 
organ attributed thereto is but conjectural. In the present the 
