82 OF THE ANIMALCULES OF THE RED SNOW. 



fig. in his plate. It is easily distinguished by its pyriform shape, and 

 the rapidity of its movements. With the exception of the very small 

 white vesicles, situated in the interior of the body, which look like 

 stomachs, Shuttleworth has not given a description of the structure of the 

 animalcule. Numerous observations have satisfied me, that it is enve- 

 loped in a carapace which encases the whole, and is only open at the 

 anterior extremity. This opening is furnished with numerous small cilia, 

 serving both as organs of locomotion and prehension. It is doubtless 

 at this point that the mouth is situated, the position of which is indi- 

 cated by an orange- coloured tint, which is clearer than the rest of the 

 animal. The presence of the carapace together with the cilia, are cha- 

 racters which do not allow this animal to be placed with Astasia, as 

 Shuttleworth has done ; on the contrary, it ought to be placed in the 

 family Peridinia, which Ehrenberg thus characterizes : Animal distinctly, 

 or to all appearance polygastric, without intestinal canal, having a cara- 

 pace, with hairs or cilia scattered over the body, or on the carapace, often 

 in the form of a girdle or crown, provided with a single aperture in the 

 carapace, and furnished with vibratile organs. It ought, otherwise, to be 

 regarded as the type of a new genus, characterized by the absence of a 

 groove in the carapace, and also that the stiff hairs are replaced by soft 

 cilia, which is not found in any other genus of the family. 



2. The Gyges Sanguineus of Shuttleworth, see his fig. 4. I will add, to 

 complete the description given to this animal by the author, that I have 

 frequently noticed, in those individuals in motion (Shuttleworth could 

 only have seen dead individuals), the orange- coloured organs occupied 

 the space between the carapace and the body, and which I believe to 

 be the retractile lips (levres.J The animal moves slowly, although di- 

 rected in every case. But that which distinguishes it above all, is its 

 mode of reproduction ; it gives off from several parts of its body small 

 transparent buds, apparently vesicular, and for the most part filled with 

 a grenue substance. As they enlarge, they are detached more or less 

 from the body of the animal ; sometimes two bodies of equal size, of 

 which one is red and carapaced, and the other quite colourless, adhere 

 by a very narrow point of attachment. By degrees this bud completely 

 detaches itself from the parent body, and appears under the form of a 

 colourless infusory animal, such as Shuttleworth has represented in his 

 7th and 8th fig., which approaches to Pandorina hyalina Ehr. I could 

 not discover in these offsets anything beyond that which Mr. S. has 

 already seen ; they are perfectly motionless ; their contents apparently 

 grenue, become coloured by degrees from green to yellow, orange, 

 and even a deep red, whilst the covering remains colourless, and is 



