QUARTERLY CHRONICLE OF MICROSCOPICAL 

 SCIENCE. 



MICROZOOLOGY AND EMBRYOLOGY. 



Neio Observations on Infusoria. — O. Butschli, in 

 ' Schultze's Archiv/ vol. ix, 4th part, 18T3, has an in- 

 teresting and important series of notes on the organiza- 

 tion and reproduction of Infusoria. He has studied species 

 of Paramsecium and Amphileptus as to the question of 

 sexual reproduction. He points out that there is no suffi- 

 cient evidence to warrant the view which has practically 

 passed into a common- place of zoological teaching — that 

 the striated body seen both by Stein and Balbiani is a 

 testicle. He denies that there is reason to hold that this 

 fibrillated body breaks up into filaments, or that if it does that 

 these filaments should be considered to be spermatozoa. There 

 is no evidence that they pass over to the nucleus and fertilise 

 it in the way assumed either by Balbiani or Stein. Again, 

 he is not satisfied as to the nature of the viviparously pro- 

 duced acinetiform young said to be developed from the 

 nucleus. He failed to find them in a long series of observa- 

 tions on Paramsecium, and thinks it still possible that they 

 are parasitic, or, at any rate, not the normal development of 

 the ripe nucleus. The structure of the nucleus he describes 

 in several cases, and fully demonstrates for it — in the ripe 

 condition — a multicellular structure. The nucleolus never 

 presented any trace of a finer structure — and Biitschli 

 seems inclined to regard the striated capsular bodies (testes 

 of Balbiani, Stein, and others), not as metamorphosed nu- 

 cleoli, but as parts of the altered nucleus, the signification 

 of which is not understood. There is, no doubt, much justice 

 in the position taken up by Biitschli, and his critical notes and 

 observations cannot fail to excite new inquiry. Is it too 

 much to hope that English microscopists will do some serious 

 work in this matter? 



Butschli further notes the occurrence of an amyloid sub- 

 stance in Gregarina Blattarum, in Nyctotheres which accom- 

 panies it, and in a marine Infusorian — StrotnhicUum sulcatum. 



He also gives a minute account and figure of the structure 

 of the trichocysts in an Infusorian Polyhrikos Schwartzii. 

 From this there remains no possibility of regarding the 



