530 THE BEGINNINGS OF LIFE. 



It was, indeed, quite obvious that the green bodies 

 between ^</' and ^J^" of an inch in diameter were 

 the thick-walled resting-spores of Vaucheria some of 

 them being still attached to the filament from which they 

 had been produced 1 . It was obvious also that they 

 gradually became decolourized and at the same time 

 animalized, until at last the contained matter was 

 resolved into a somewhat opaque and coarsely-granular, 

 though more bulky, embryo mass. This mass subse- 

 quently contracted upon itself so as to leave a well- 

 marked space between its outer surface and the. wall 

 of the cyst in which it was enclosed (c) 2 . It afterwards 

 underwent the well-known process of segmentation, 

 every stage of which was to be seen in different 

 specimens (J). 



Thousands of such bodies (about ^" long by 

 -g-^" broad) existed, and in addition to the facts 

 already mentioned, proving the parental relationship 

 existing between these thick-walled spores of Vaucheria 

 and the embryo Nematoids, it is especially worthy of 

 note that when the latter were first seen, not a single 

 adult form was to be encountered. Though after about 

 one month, those of the previous embryos which had 



1 These thick -walled 'spores are occasionally produced in large 

 numbers upon the sides of the filaments by a process of ' conjugation ' 

 occurring between the contents of two contiguous tubular outgrowths. 



2 The space, however, seemed to be in part due to a still further 

 dilatation of the cyst, the membrane of which had by this time become 

 most appreciably thinner. 



