Ixxii THE BEGINNINGS OF LIFE. 



they had remained for some months in a state of complete 

 quiescence, I placed some of these segmenting cells into 

 water on a slide, and, covering them with ordinary thin 

 glass, I put them in the sun for about an hour. To my 

 great surprise, 1 found the whole water alive with zoospores. 

 There were thousands in the square inch, in a most active 

 state. Further examination showed that the segments had 

 been released by the bursting of the parent cell-wall, and 

 had now become these zoospores. After a time they came 

 to rest, and altogether lost their activity. I preserved the 

 slide for some time, but I could not determine anything very 

 definite as to their after-life, beyond that they came to rest, 

 lost their cilia, and again subdivided. . . . These zoo- 

 spores were of a light-green colour, they differed slightly in 

 size, and were principally oval ; some, however (and these 

 were the larger), were round. They possessed two cilia, 

 and their contents were granular. The smaller measured 



TFinr b 7 Tmnr of an inch *' 



So far we have been speaking of the reproductive pro- 

 cesses peculiar to, and of the formation of gonidia in, the 

 confervoid filaments of Mosses ; but the power of producing 

 gonidia is not restricted to such parts. These bodies are 

 occasionally developed from the leaves of Mosses, just as 

 they are capable of being produced from every part of the 

 thallus of a Lichen. 



Dr. Hicks says the ascending axis may spring up in the 

 usual manner from a confervoid filament, and the produc- 

 tion of leaves may commence ; but occasionally the cells, 

 ' which should in the ordinary way unite to form their lamina, 

 in this case do not cohere, but either run parallel to or branch 

 away somewhat from each other.' The terminal cell of each 

 of these pseudo-leaves possesses, like the terminal cells of 



1 Reissek of Vienna has also described peculiar changes which are 

 undergone by the chlorophyll of ordinary flowering plants. 



