lis NOTES AND MEMORANDA. 



ortrans of the Annelida. It is generally stated that in no 

 case is there more than one pair of segmental organs in each 

 annelidan segment, although the coexistence of segmental 

 organs and generative ducts in the same segment in the Terri- 

 colus Oligochseta led Professor Lankester to regard two as 

 the typical number of pairs for each segment. Dr. Eisig has 

 now shown that in Notomastus more than one pair of 

 segmental organs is frequently present in a segment, and 

 that in Capitella capitata a plurality of these organs in each 

 segment is the rule. 



Moreover, in Capitella the number in each segment in- 

 creases from before backwards. In adult Amphibia there are 

 usually several segmental tubes in each segment, and the 

 actual number in each segment also increases from before 

 backwards. This fact has been used as an argument against 

 the comparison of the segmental organs in Vertebrata and 

 Annelida ; but Dr. Eisig's observations prove that on this point 

 at any rate there is no important differen:'.e between the 

 organs in the two types. — F. M. B. 



Bacteria as the Cause of the Ropy Chang'e of Beet-root Sug-ar. 



— The so-called "Frog-spawn" of sugar manufactarers is a gela- 

 tinous formation, the origin of which has hitherto been exi)lained 

 in various ways. Professor Cienkowski has recently published 

 at Charkow a memoir, in which he describes and figures a Bac- 

 terium as the cause of the remarkable and economically important 

 phenomena connected with this alteration of sugar. According 

 to Scheibler, the " Frog-spawn " is the protoplasm of the cells of 

 the sugar-beet; according to Jubert and Mendes, this gummy 

 substance is an aggregate of various organised ferments. Durin 

 ascribes the "Frog-spawn" to a peculiar fermentation, due to the 

 action of diastase on crystalhne sugar, whereby the latter is 

 broken up into cellulose (the spawn) and glucose. 



Cienkowski's researches, carried on both in a sugar factory and 

 by means of culture experiments, prove that the view put 

 forward by Jubert and Mendes is essentially the correct one ; the 

 "Frog-spawn" is in reality a product of the vital activity of 

 Bacteria; it is to these organisms, and not to diastase, that we 

 must ascribe the decomposition of the crystalhne sugar discovered 

 by Durin. 



The jelly of the '' Frog-spawn " shows in its structure and 

 development the closest resemblance to the Ascococcus Billrothii 

 of Cohn (see this Journal, vol. XVI, p. 264, and Plate XX, fig. 

 1, for Cohn's description and figure of Ascococcus Billrothii). It 

 is, perhaps, only a variety of that species, and in any case belongs 



