CONFERVA ON THE SKIN OF THE GOLD-FISH. 34*7 



Each articulation was tubular, filled with a transparent fluid 

 in which floated granules. Their walls appeared to be homo- 

 geneous ; I could detect no double membrane, but at the spot 

 where the neighbouring articulations were connected, the 

 internal surface of each appeared to leave the external surface 

 of the filament so as to form by conjunction the flat dia- 

 phragms. It would appear, then, that the walls of the cells 

 are originally double, but have coalesced in the progress of 

 growth. Towards the basal extremity of each articulation, 

 generally close upon it, but sometimes a little removed, is a 

 globular transparent vesicle. This vesicle varied in size, 

 directly as the diameter of the articulation. I did not observe 

 this vesicle in any instance exhibiting a nucleus or granular 

 contents. I occasionally observed it floating free in the fluid 

 of the articulation ; but this might have been the effect of 

 violence. The fluid of certain of the articulations contained 

 granules about the 5000th or 6000th of an inch. Others again 

 contained no granular matter. These granules did not exhibit 

 molecular motion. I, on more than one occasion, observed a 

 steady onward motion of the granules and transparent vesicle ; 

 but this appeared to depend on unequal pressure and level of 

 the object-plates. 



From certain spots on the external surface of the articula- 

 tions spots which appeared to be arranged in no appreciable 

 order, there sprung bundles of very numerous, cylindrical, 

 elongated, and transparent filaments. These were so nume- 

 rous and so convoluted and twisted as to defy every attempt 

 to disentangle them ; in fact, they occasionally obscured alto- 

 gether the stems or primary filaments of the plant. They 

 arose from all the articulations except the basal and terminal, 

 at least I never saw them springing from the latter, although 

 I occasionally saw them arising from what I took to be the 

 upper end of a basal articulation. They were quite cylin- 

 drical, as thick at their free as at their attached extremities, 



