THE ANNALS 



AXD 



MAGAZINE OF NATURAL HISTORY. 



[SECOND SERIES.] 



" I perlitora spargite museum. 



Naiades, et circilm vitreos considite fontes : 

 PoUice virgineo teneros hic carpite flores : 

 Floribus et pictura, divae, replete canistrum. 

 At vos, o Nymphx Craterides, ite sub undas ; 

 Ite, recurvato variata corallia truiico 

 Vellite muscosis e rupibus, et mihi conchas 

 Ferte, Dese pelagi, et pingui conchylia succo." 



J^. Parthenii Giannettasii Eel, I. 



No, 91. JULY 1855. 



I. — Observations on the Development of Gonidia (?) from the 

 Cell-contents of the Characese, and on the Circulation of the 

 Mucus-substance of the Cell; with a Postscript. By H, J. 

 Carter, Esq., Assistant Surgeon H.C.S., Bombay. 



1 HE following is a short summary of observations on the cell- 

 contents of the Characeffi made in the island of Bombay during 

 the last eight months, and which want of time only now pre- 

 vents me from communicating in a more extended and complete 

 form. All physiologists are acquainted with the development 

 of the spiral filaments in the globule and a new plant from the 

 nucule, but the passage of the cell-contents into gonidia in this 

 family of the AJgse does not seem to have met with description ; 

 nor has, I think, the circulatory movement been satisfactorily 

 explained. 



Before, however, proceeding to the detail of these phsenomena, 

 it is desirable to refresh the memory of the reader with a descrip- 

 tion of the recent cell of the Characese in which the circulation 

 is going on, and for this purpose 1 shall take an internode of 

 Nitella, as at once furnishing the simplest and largest type of 

 the cell throughout the family*. 



* The species of Nitella which I have used for my observations is a de- 

 licate, slender plant with lonj? iuternodes and umbellife-rous verticils, the 

 Ann. 6,- Afarj. N. Hist. Ser. 2. Vol. xvi. 1 



