Dr. A. Gunther on a new Generic Type of Fishes. 195 
matter; and in any case we should have to assume in each cell- 
system, not a single primordial sac, but as many of these as 
there are of superimposed cells (e. g. figs. 51 & 52, 80-85), 
even if it were permissible, in opposition to the idea set up by 
the founder of this theory, to give the name of the primordial 
sac to that layer of the cell-wall which is the last to give up its 
original peculiarity. 
In this case the denomination employed by me for the tissue- 
cell, of “a cell-system consisting of cells nested one within the 
other,” might be altered into “a tissue-cell consisting of primor- 
dial sacs nested one within the other.” 
Just as the organism requires the complete, normal, endo- 
genous, serial development and the harmonious cooperation of 
all its elementary organs, for the perfect unfolding of its typical 
form and functions, the normal structure and activity of each 
of these elementary organs depends upon the undisturbed deve- 
lopment of all these simple organizations, which stand in an in- 
timate reciprocal relation to each other, the cells engaged in a 
constant interchange of materials, with a structureless spherical 
envelope and heterogeneous unorganized contents produced in 
the plastic juice of the mother cell. 
It is only in the duration of the reciprocal action of the con- 
tents and membrane—the two constantly changing constituents 
of the cell—that its organization consists. An absolute stoppage 
of the change of materials of all its parts is coincident with the 
cessation of the organizatorial activity of the organism. 
The opposite idea—namely that the secretion-structure, the 
cellulose membrane, just as the calcareous shell is the house of 
the snail, forms the chamber into which plant-life retires, the 
house of the plant-cell, and afterwards its tomb—would become, 
if it found acceptance, the winding-sheet of science. 
XXI.—On a new Generic Type of Fishes discovered by the late 
Dr. Leichardt in Queensland. By Aubert Gintuer, M.A., 
M.D., Ph.D. 
[Plate VII. | 
Sir Dantex Cooper, Sir Philip G. Egerton, and Mr. G. Krefft 
have favoured me with photographs of a fish obtained by the 
late Dr. Leichardt in the Burdekin River, which evidently is 
the type of a new and remarkable genus. The specimen from 
which the photographs were taken is a dry skin, 15 inches 
long, preserved in the Australian Museum at Sydney. The 
photograph sent by Sir P. Egerton was accompanied by a scale 
taken from the middle of the side of the Sydney specimen, and 
shows a structure very similar to that of the scales of the 
13* 
