136 .SKETCH OF THE INFUSORIA 



covering the bottom and shores of Providence Cove at low tide. 

 I found it again in vast quantities, in salt ditches near the railroad 

 at Stonington, Conn., where it formed large fleecy masses, some- 

 times of several feet in extent. Still more recently I have found 

 it at Staten Island, and also, much to my surprise, sixty miles up 

 the Hudson river, near West Point.* 



The form is not strictly octangular, but at first appears so, in 

 consequence of the two minute projections of the delicate trans- 

 verse ridges seen near the ends of each of the two globules be- 

 longing to a joint. They do not change their form when heated 

 to redness, nor by action of hot hydrochloric acid. They fuse 

 with ejffervescence with carbonate of potassa, and the fused mass 

 when treated with hydrochloric acid gives silica in abundance. 

 There can, then, be no doubt that the glass-like filaments of this 

 species are siliceous. Our species agi-ees in all respects with 

 authentic European specimens (in Herb. Tor.) collected by 

 Hoffman Bang, at Hoffmansgave. 



2. Gaillonella aurichalcea. (PI. II, fig. 4,4 a?) Corpuscles elon- 

 gated, cylindrical, truncate, flattened, smooth, contiguous, a simple or 

 double pierced furrow in the middle of the body, ovaries greenish, 

 becoming golden yellow when diy, y^g of a line. Conferva oi-ichal- 

 cea Ag., Syst. Alg. p. 86. Meloseira oricJcalcea, Ktz., Linn., 1833, p. 

 72, 588, PI. 17, fig. 68. 



Our species (PI. II, fig. 4, a, b,) agrees so closely with Kutzing's 

 figure 68, even in the branching character and occasional pro- 

 duction of large globular joints, (see (c) in fig. 4,) that I feel fittle 

 hesitation in considering it as the G. aurichalcea, although I am 



* The Flora and Fauna of the Hudson River at West Point, would, in a fossil state, be 

 rather puzzling- to the geologist, on account of the singtilar mixture oi marine SiwAjliivia- 

 tile species. While Vallisneria and Potamogeton grow in such vast quantities in many 

 places as to prevent the passage of a boat, and the shore is covered whh _fli/viatife shells, 

 such as Planorbis, Physa, &:c. in a living state ; we yet find the above fresh-water plants 

 entangled with bunches of marine Algse, such as Enteromorpha, Ectocarptis, &:c., and 

 often covered with marine parasitic zoophytes and marine infusoria, (Achnanthes, Gail- 

 lonella, Echinclla, Naiuiema, c\:c. ; while the rocks below low waiter mark arc covered 

 with Balani and minute corallines, and the marine flora is represented by vast quantities 

 of a ver\^ elegant Polysiphonia, (P. siihtilissima Mont.]) abimdance of Enteromorpha in- 

 testinalis, Ectocarpus silicnlosus, and an elegant Alga, identical with Delesseria Lep- 

 rieurii of Montague, which was first detected on the shores of Cayenne. (See Annales 

 des Scieuces Naturelles, 2d series, Bot., torn. 13, p. 196, and pi. 5.) 



