THE BEGINNINGS OF LIFE. 529 



moreover, all young immature forms, in which the 

 sexual organs, if present at all, were only partially 

 developed. Whilst not a single adult female was 

 seen, immature females and males were abundantly 

 represented, and especially the latter. What then had 

 been their mode of origin ? A careful microscopical 

 examination of almost any minute specimen of the 

 weed soon made this quite obvious. In addition to the 

 free forms, many embryo Nematoids were seen coiled 

 up within ovoid cysts and lying amongst the filaments. 

 Cysts were also seen containing a mere embryo mass, 

 which either had or had not begun to undergo seg- 

 mentation -y. whilst other cysts existed (of the same size 

 or only a trifle smaller), which were spherical or ovoidal, 

 and contained either green chlorophyll corpuscles or 

 chlorophyll corpuscles in a state of decolourization (a) 1 . 

 Other cysts existed in which the decolourized corpuscles 

 had fused and become converted into a colourless em- 

 bryonic mass containing a multitude of fatty-looking 

 granules and globules, of different sizes (^) 2 . 



1 The process of decolourization, too, was different from anything 

 which I had previously seen. The green corpuscles gradually assumed 

 fainter and fainter tints, and at last became colourless, without having 

 passed through any of the customary intermediate tints. Similar pro- 

 cesses, however, seem to have been observed by Dr. Gros, since the 

 transformed vesicles, derived from Moss-sporangia, represented in PI. J, 

 figs, 4-7, seem to be remarkably similar to the Vaucheria spores, although 

 instead of producing Nematoids they mostly gave rise to Rotifers. 



2 The transformation of chlorophyll into fatty products is easily 

 explicable (see note 2, p. 425), and the evolutional tendencies of nitro- 

 genized fatty substances has been before referred to (vol. i. p. 212, note i). 



VOL. II. M m 



