Mr. H. J. Carter on the Organization of Infusoria. 289 



thium entophytum, yet the presence of utricles filled with little 

 straight tubes like the seminal bodies of Vaucheria and Sapro- 

 legnia in company with the sporangia of P. entophytum, indicates, 

 with great probability, that they are its antheridia. Pringsheim, 

 however, like myself, mistook the nature of this organism for- 

 merly, as may be seen by reference to the 'Annals' (vol. xi. 

 p. 294, ] 853), where he contended that it was not a parasite, 

 but a reproductive element of Spirogyra, in whose cells it occui'S, 

 while in 1859 he makes it a Saprolegnia. 



It was this organism to which I alluded in my communication 

 to the 'Annals,' in 1857, entitled "The Transformation of 

 Vegetable Protoplasm into Actinophrys/' where I described 

 the contents of the sporangium as consisting of monociliated 

 polymorphic cells which lost their cilium and put on the radiated 

 form of Actinophrys ; also that when within the cells of Spiro- 

 gyra, they enclosed the protoplasm and its contents after the 

 manner of Amoeba. The monociliated bodies Pringsheim calls 

 " zoospores ; " and these would form the female, while his tubular 

 cells (" tubes ") would form the male element of the organism. 

 Thus we have a being which brings us at once close upon the 

 confines of the Animal, Algal, and Fungal divisions of organic 

 life. 



In the protoplasm of Nitella, as I have figured and described 

 long ago, another form of these rhizopodous parasites abounds ; 

 and in the cells of Spirogyra crassa, circular nuclei may fre- 

 quently be seen, which probably belong to Pythium entophytum. 

 Thus for the future I would regard all those apparent trans- 

 formations of the protoplasm as the development of parasitic 

 germs previously existing in it (where they are not obviously 

 introduced), which, under favourable circumstances, that is, 

 where the specific vitality of the cell begins to ebb, begin to 

 assimilate its protoplasm, &c., to their own form ; for the proto- 

 plasm must be still fresh, as under sudden putrescency they do 

 not appear, but probably as rapidly pass into decomposition as 

 the protoplasm in which they have been living. It is difficult 

 to realize the nature of these changes at first ; for, like those of 

 a " dissolving view," as before stated, they are inappreciable ; 

 but such, I am now persuaded, is the way in which they must 

 be explained. 



Eudorina elegans. 



Lastly, at p. 10 of the 'Annals,' vol. iii. 1859, I have made a 

 mistake in correcting what I fancied to be an error in my de- 

 scription of the "green cell" of Eudorina, viz. in trying to 

 prove that what I had previously stated to be the "nucleus" 

 was a " starch-cell." Subsequent observation has shown me 



Ann. &; Mag. N. Hist. Ser. 3. Vol. viii. 19 



