362 FERNS. 



and appearance, and motions of a living animalcule ; 

 a flat ribbon-like worm, spirally coiled into about four 

 whirls, tapering to a fine-drawn point behind, and 

 furnished for about half its length anteriorly with a 

 number of projecting hairs (cilia). At first this 

 worm (spermatozoon) lies coiled motionless in a little 

 transparent bladder, within one of the cubic cells. 

 The walls of these cubic cells now dissolve ; and the 

 globules with their (as yet inactive) spermatozoa lie 

 loose in the midst of the antheridium. At length the 

 terminal lens-shaped cell of this bursts, and the glo- 

 bules escape, and swim with a rotary motion in the 

 drops of moisture which lie condensed on the inferior 

 surface of the protliallium, the ciliated end of the 

 spermatozoon protruding through each. Suddenly 

 the globule bursts with a wide aperture, and the sper- 

 matozoon, partly uncoiling, darts out and swims away 

 with a rapid motion, rotating as it goes. But we 

 must leave these curious bodies awhile, and trace the 

 development of another equally strange set of organs. 

 The prothalUum, meanwhile, has been growing, and 

 has taken a forked form, the tip forming two expanded 

 portions, divided by a deep indentation. The bottom 

 of this sinus is the seat of the archegonia, which are 

 but few, while the antlieridia are very numerous. 

 The substance of the prothalUum on its under-surface, 

 just behind the bottom of the sinus, becomes a cushion 

 of small cells, by the minute subdivision of the cells 

 already existing at that part; and on this cushion 

 there grows an elevated wart, which is the arche- 



