272 M. W. Hofmeister on the Fertilization of Ferns. 



314. Graculus pygm^eus, Pallas. Cadel cagam, Mai. ; lit. Sea 

 Crow. Dia Kama, Cing. ; lit. Water Kawa. See Krai, 

 Dutch. Graya de Mare, Port. 



— which is also found abundantly on all the inland lakes and 

 rivers of any magnitude. 



315. Thalassidroma pelagica, Briss. 



The Stormy Petrel is occasionally seen flitting about Colombo 

 roadstead and Galle harbour, particularly after rough weather. 

 It was the last bird that I saw when I quitted the shores of the 

 island, and the last of my " Notes on the Ornithology of Ceylon." 



XXVI. — On the Fertilization of Ferns. By W. Hofmeister*. 



[The author having kindly sent rne a copy of the following note, 

 I place it before the readers of the ' Annals ' as an important 

 supplement to the notices I have published on the subject in 

 this Journal t and elsewhere. It may be remarked that these 

 statements, recording direct observation of the passage of the 

 spermatozoids down the archegonium, take away the necessity of 

 attributing a conducting power to the mucilaginous contents of 

 the canal of the archegonium, which I speculatively suggested, 

 never having been able to find a spermatozoid in contact with 

 the germinal vesicle. — A. H.] 



Numerous examinations of the prothallia of various Ferns in 

 which the embryo was in course of development — examinations 

 made for the purpose of ascertaining the order of formation of 

 the cells of the vegetative organs — have led to my discovery of 

 certain circumstances, hitherto unknown, affording more direct 

 conclusions regarding the process of reproduction in the higher 

 Cryptogamia. 



The germinal vesicle originates in the central cell of the arche- 

 gonium, around a nucleus which appears in the vaulted apex of 

 that cell, without the primitive central nucleus undergoing any 

 essential change. I have already observed and described this 

 phenomenon in the Equisetacese (Abhandl. der kon. Sachs. Ge- 

 sellsch. der Wiss. ii. 172); it holds good of all the vascular 

 Cryptogamia. Before fertilization the germinal vesicle fills 

 scarcely one-third of the central cell. The primary nucleus of 



* From the Reports of the Royal Society of Sciences of Saxony, April 22, 

 1854. Communicated by Arthur Henfrey, F.R.S. &c. 



t Ann. Nat. Hist. 2nd Ser. vol. ix. p. 444. Linnaean Transactions, 

 vol. xxi. p. 117- 



