272 E, RAY LANKESTER. 



examples bore archegonia with embryonal outgrowth, and 

 others only direct bud-development, it is of course interest- 

 ing to know whether the young plantlets of the two kinds of 

 origin exactly resemble one another in their after develop- 

 ment. For this purpose, a number of specimens evidently 

 belonging to the category of abnormal growths were trans- 

 planted into ' a pot where their growth could be watched. 

 During a recent visit to Strassburg I examined the specimens 

 which had already attained the height of five or six inches, 

 and they were sufficiently well developed to make it evident 

 that they were plants of Pteris cretica, not of P. serrulata, as 

 had been at first supposed. 



In conclusion, I would take this opportunity heartily to 

 thank Professor De Bary of Strassburg for material and 

 advice kindly afforded during the course of the foregoing 

 investigations. 



TORQUATELLA TYPICA ; « NeW TyPE of INFUSORIA, ALLIED 



to the CiLiATA (with Plate XII, figs. 1 — 5). By E. Ray 

 Lankester, M.A., Fellow and Lecturer of Exeter College, 

 Oxford. 



Two years ago, at Naples, I found and made sketches of a 

 very curious little Infusorium, which is sufficiently remark- 

 able to deserve record, though I have but few details of its 

 structure to communicate, and only met with it in one 

 ** gathering." It occurred in connection with a mass of eggs 

 of Terehella which I was keeping for the study of the develop- 

 ment of that annelid. Other Infusoria — true ciliate hetero- 

 trichous forms — were abundant in the same vessel of sea water, 

 feeding on such of the eggs as were in a decaying state. Some 

 of these contained red masses which they had engulphed — 

 detached fragments of the broken-down Terebella eggs. Others 

 were busy in making their way through slits in the chorion of 

 certain eggs, eager to enjoy the feast within, and some of the 

 egg-shells contained two or three Infusoria hopelessly drifting 

 round and round, having eaten all the semi-decayed egg-yelk 

 and apparently unable to return by the slit which had 

 admitted them — most unquestionable cases for the founda- 

 tion of elaborate theories of " heterogenetic metamorphosis " 

 on the part of rashly speculative nature-philosophers — 

 but such as are well enough known to assiduous students 

 of the minuter forms of life. Here and there, among 



