318 Miscellaneous. 



care be taken to examine the cellules, in perfectly fresh specimens, 

 with first-rate instruments. 



The evidence for the animality of the Porifera is, I think, more 

 conclusive than some naturalists of the present day are inclined to 

 admit. I feel assured that few botanists would be disposed to claim 

 for these organisms a truly vegetable nature. The following pecu- 

 liarities taken together seem sufficient to establish their true animal 

 nature : — The existence of distinct currents in definite directions ; 

 vibratile cilia ; ciliated locomotive gemmules ; peculiar animal smell of 

 burnt gelatinous matter. I may also mention the observations of 

 Milne-Edwards and Audouin on the IrritabiUty of Tethea*. Dr. 

 Johnston informs me, that some very recent observations on a large 

 foreign species tend remarkably to confirm the statements of Audouin 

 and M.-Edwards. Dujardin's interesting observations on Spongilla 

 also tend to prove the sponge an animal f. He noticed the remark- 

 able property which detached portions of the granular matter of 

 Spongilla possess, of spreading into " Expansions variables en lobes 

 arrondis, comme certaines amibes.'^ Both Dujardin and Professor 

 Allen Thomson have observed cilia in the freshwater sponge ; but the 

 existence of cilia in marine sponges has, so far as I am aware, been 

 always denied. In conclusion, I will only allude to Mr. J. A. Carter's 

 interesting observation of species of Spongilla in the water-tanks in 

 Bombay^. Mr. Carter confirmed and considerably extended Dujar- 

 din's observations, but did not detect cilia. All these circumstances 

 being considered, the animality of the Porifera will not, I think, be 

 so equivocal as the following concluding sentence of Professor Rymer 

 Jones's late article on the Porifera seems to intimate : " The admis- 

 sibility of sponges into the animal series is indeed extremely problem- 

 atical, and we doubt not, that among naturalists of the present day, 

 the balance of opinion would be unfavourable towards retaining them 

 in the rank, which they at present occupy in zoological classifica- 

 tion §." — Proceedings of the Royal Medical Society of Edinburgh, 



Experimental Researches upon the Process of Fecundation in Mosses. 

 By M. H. Philibert. 



The author in concluding his memoir gives the following rSsumS of 

 his conclusions : — 



1. The archegonium of Mosses is a true ovule. 



2. The external envelope, which has been called epigonium, and 

 which afterwards becomes the calyptra, is analogous to the nucleus of 

 the ovule of the Phanerogamia. 



* Hist. Nat. du Litt. de la France, vol. i. p. 78. 



t Dujardin, Hist. Nat. des Infusoires, p. 305. 



X Notes on Sponges. Trans. Med. and Phys. Soc. Bombay, No. 8. 

 Reprinted in the 'Annals and Mag. of Nat. Hist.' New Series, April 1848. 

 A second paper on the same subject appeared in the third volume of the 

 ♦ Annals,' 1849. 



§ Cyclopaedia of Anat. and Phys. vol. iv. p. 70. 



