482 MEMOIRS OF THE UNIVERSITY OP CALIFORNIA 



he noted that, in the possession of an eyespot composed of a pigment mass and 

 a lens, and in the presence of a highly contractile "tentacle," the degree of 

 organization jiresented by the organism was unusual for the Protozoa. Hert- 

 wig (1884) did not attempt to determine the relationships of his Erythropsis, 

 but suggested that it was near the Infusoria and that its cuticula, nucleus, aud 

 opercular apparaus allied it to the vorticellid, but that the characterisie cilia 

 of these ciliates had not been observed in his new genus. He makes no suggestion 

 of any relation of Erythropsis to the Dinoflagellata, though he does cite Lepto- 

 discus and Noctiluca in discussing the question of its degree of specialization. 



Shortly after the appearance of this cautiously worded account of this weird 

 protozoan by the young docent at Bonn the veteran zoologist, Carl Vogt, of 

 Geneva, attacked (1885fl) with characteristic vigor the validity of Hertwig's 

 interpretation. He requested his colleagues to debar Erythropsis from the 

 "catalogue" of animals and stated dogmatically that it was "in der That" 

 only a detached vorticellid, Spastostyla sertidariarum Entz, which had had the 

 misfortune to have been thrown into osmic acid by the Bonn zoologist just as 

 it was in the act of swallowing a marginal eyespot of a half rotten medusa, 

 probably Lizzia. 



Hertwig (1885) published a reply to this attack upon his interpretation 

 stating his groimds for believing that Erythropsis was a real organism and 

 not the monstrous aggregation which Vogt had interpreted it to be. A^ogt, 

 however, returned to the attack (1885&) in a caustic article entitled "Ein 

 wissenschaftlicher Irrthum," published in the widely distributed Die Natur, 

 a popular scientific journal, in which he made clear his duty to expose the error, 

 the grounds upon which the exposure rested, and controverted Hertwig 's reply, 

 treating him anomanously. "Der Mcnsch irrt, so lange er lebt," Elites Vogt, 

 and then proceeds to distinguish, as particularly harmful to science, those errors 

 in fact, such as false accounts of organisms which cmnber synomTny, and give 

 rise to unsupported hj^othesis. 



Ein neuer Organismus wird beschrieben, dessen ganzer Bau, wenn er wirklieh existirte, 

 unsere Begriffe von der thierisehen Zelle, von den einzelligen Urthieren mit AUem, was drum 

 uud dran bangt, ganzlieh iiber den Haufen werfen wiirde. Was ist zu thun? Schweigt man 

 still, so zieht die unerwartete Thatsache stets weitere und weitere Kreise. Die jiingeren 

 Forseher. meist wenig zur Kritik geneigt nnd dem "Worte des Meisters treu, maehen aus dera 

 neiien Steine die Grundlage ibrer Spekulatiouen und theoretiscbeu Gebaude ; es eroffnen sicb 

 groszartige Perspektiven ; man siebt schon weitere Verzweigungen und Ankniipfungen der jetzt 

 so beliebteu Stammbaume, die ohne Riieksieht auf Zeit und Rauni zusammen geflickt werden, 

 wie die Stammbaume der Paladine, die alle von fliiehtigou trojauisclien Ileldeu ausgingen. So 

 gibt man sich, neben den vergeblieben Naebforscbungen um weitere Exemplare des so hoeb 

 interessanten und merkwiirdigen Tbieres, viel Miibe, Noth und Plage, bis endlich die Seifenblase 

 platzt, welehe dem Ganzen zu Grunde lag. 



