402 Prof. Reichert on the Phenomena of Motion 



" A distinction of membrane and contents does not exist in the 

 filaments (p. 17); observation is against an interior channeled 

 structure in which the larger globules are moved ; but the 

 regular flowing to and fro of the contractile substance eff'ects 

 the movement of the granules, and the latter, again, inform us of 

 the movements of contraction. The small granules moreover 

 move with the substance flowing out of the general mass of the 

 body into the filaments themselves ; the larger ones, on the con- 

 trary, appear as corpuscles moving on the filaments. The co- 

 alescence of two or more filaments, the passage of the granules 

 from one into the others united with it, must also remove all 

 doubts raised as to the nature of the substance of the body of 

 the Polythalamia being such as was assumed by Dujardin." 



Soon afterwards a parallel was set up between the supposed 

 granular movements in the pseudopodia of the Polythalamia 

 and the currents in the cells of plants, by Unger and Cohn, and 

 thus the bridge was made by which the theory of the proto- 

 plasmic mass was enabled to make good its entry into science. 



According to J. Miiller, the granular movement in the Poly- 

 thalamia exactly resembles those in the extended filaments of the 

 Thalassicollse, Polycystina, and Acanthometrse"^. In his descrip- 

 tion of the phenomena of motion in the filaments of the Sphcero- 

 zoa (p. 7) there is an observation on elongated swellings passing 

 along these filaments like granules, to which I must hereafter 

 refer particularly. 



During my residence at Trieste last year, my most ardent 

 desire to become more exactly acquainted, from personal obser- 

 vation, with the phenomena of motion in the pseudopodia of the 

 Polythalamia, which have led to such diff"erent views upon the 

 organization of animals, was fulfilled. The sea-mud with the 

 living Polythalamia was procured from the basins which have 

 been shut off" in the neighbourhood of Zaole for the manufacture 

 of sea-salt. In this there were a species of Miliola and one of 

 Rotalia which I did not more particularly determine. The ani- 

 mals were examined under magnifying powers of 300, 500, and 

 700 diameters. 



The first impression made upon me by the phenomena of 

 motion in the pseudopodia was of such a nature as fully to sup- 

 port the descriptions of Dujardin and Max Schultze : it was as 

 if one had to do with a fluid substance readily changing its 

 configuration and course with a constant flow and return of 

 particles. But any one observing the astonishing spectacle, 

 which appears so wonderful from its opposition to evident facts 

 in the organization of animals, without reposing a blind con- 



* Abhandl. der Akad. der Wiss. zu Berlin, 1858, p. 2. 



