480 THE BEGINNINGS OF LIFE. 



the microscope, the appearance of resting spores that 

 is to say, they consist of a dark green, globular, grumous 

 mass, invested with a transparent spherical cell. This 

 green mass, in all that I have examined, has been in an 

 active state of rotation, first one way and then the other, 

 by means of short cilia which covered its surface like 

 those on the spores of Vaucberia Ungeri. . . . Two days 

 after I had collected a number of these globular bodies 

 and placed them in a watch-glass for observation, partly 

 in and partly out of their respective internodes, the 

 green mass in many had become divided up into four 

 or more sacs, which were ciliated like the parent one, 

 and enclosed in a second transparent spherical cell. 

 These also rotated individually and en masse^ while the 

 division appeared to have enabled them to throw off 

 the greater portion of the dark green pellets, now be- 

 come black, and lying loosely in a more or less floccu- 

 lent state, like effete matter, in the inner cell. . . . The 

 third day the spherical cells had burst, and the ciliated 

 sacs, which averaged T ^" in diameter, were set free in 

 the water. . . . They now presented different appear- 

 ances according to their contents, shape, and motions. 

 All were filled with a colourless, granular mucus, charged 

 with small vesicles, and each presented also a large 

 " contracting vesicle." In some there was left only a 

 trace of the dark matter, while in others there was a 

 considerable quantity, either in an undefined state, or 

 in small globules. They presented both an undulatory 

 motion of the cell-wall, and a ciliary motion of its 



