387 
been subjected to the influence of aqueous vapour, which 
may be supposed to remove or render permeable this pellicle ; 
also from the action of chloroform, oil, and cyanogen, which 
cause the discharge or diffusion of the hemoglobin from the 
corpuscle, perhaps by first removing or rendering permeable 
—at any rate modifying—this outer pellicle. 
Steam, chloroform, benzine, bisulphide of carbon, am- 
monia and cyanogen, act on the red blood-corpuscle so as 
to cause the escape of the hemoglobin. 
The further action of these reagents causes the elimination 
of what may be called Roberts’s constituent, that which is 
stained by magenta and set by tannin. 
A still further action of chloroform, of water, or of am- 
monia, dissolves first the stroma, lastly the nucleus. 
The details of these actions are given in the paper. 
Carbonic oxide and sulphuretted hydrogen produce their 
respective changes on the hemoglobin, as demonstrated 
spectroscopically, without altering the form of the corpuscle, 
merely effecting the radiation of its body. 
On Unnuina, the type of a New Group of INFusoria. 
By E. Ray LANKESTER. 
In making the numerous examinations of the blood of 
frogs above recorded, I have now and then met with the 
interesting little parasite drawn in the woodcut. When I 
first saw it, in some blood from a frog last summer, I took it 
for a very active white blood-corpuscle, since it is a very 
little smaller than one of the red corpuscles of the frog’s 
blood. On using, however, a higher power (No. 10 a im- 
mersion of Hartnack) I made out its infusorial nature, 
though, on account of the great activity of its movements, I 
was long uncertain as to the nature of its locomotive organs. 
Numerous specimens occurred in the blood of a frog (Rana 
esculenta) examined at Leipzig, in March last, and by the use 
of a small quantity of acetic acid vapour, I was able to kill 
the little creature without injuring it, and then to make out 
its structure. It was seen to be a minute pyriform sac, with 
the narrower end bent round on itself somewhat spirally, and 
the broader end spread out into a thin membrane, which ex- 
hibited four or five folds, and was produced on one side into 
a very long flagellum. The wall of the sac was striated 
coarsely, as in Opalina; and the direction of the striz on the 
VOL. XI.—NEW SER. c'G 
