u6 REMINISCENCES OF 



was bequeathed to us by its original discoverer. As 

 late as the days of Ehrenberg and even of Professor 

 Rupert Jones (1847) it was ^ill a debated question 

 whether the object was a plant or an animal, both 

 of the above observers having accepted the latter of 

 these conclusions. 



So far as its appearance was concerned, the little 

 structure was a very thin walled, delicate, trans- 

 parent sphere, to the inner surface of which a large 

 number of minute symmetrically arranged green 

 specks were adherent. A number of tightly drawn 

 threads, delicate as the spiders' web employed by 

 astronomers, extended from each green point to those 

 that immediately surrounded it. Besides these fea- 

 tures, from four to six globes, each larger than 

 the green specks, but varying exceedingly in size 

 and appearance in different specimens, either floated 

 free in the colourless fluid that filled the cavity of 

 the parent object, or adhered to the inner surface of 

 the pellucid wall of the sphere. After weeks of 

 patient observation under the microscope, I one day 

 caught a momentary glimpse of a few symmetrical 

 hexagonal areolae on the inner surface of the pellucid 

 wall. It appeared but for a moment, but during 

 that moment it was sufficiently distinct to convince 

 me that it was part of some structural peculiarity 

 that had hitherto escaped observation. I at once 

 devoted time to the recovery of the vision, but for 

 weeks I laboured in vain. I then tried the experiment 

 of allowing a number of the objects to soak for some 



