ACHYLA PROLIFERA. 57 



derful that what we have passed by unheeded for so many 

 years, or even turned from in disgust, should be so very 

 beautiful. The filaments are worked by the hand of God 

 in such varied pattern, that every pool may furnish us 

 with a new specimen, and read us a lesson of the infinite 

 care that has been bestowed on the lowest orders of crea- 

 tion. 



The conjugation of Zygnema resembles that of Closterium, 

 only as the filament is long and divided into many cells, 

 every cell throws out a connecting tube, and one filament 

 completely empties itself into the other, remaining colourless, 

 whilst the recipient has a dark-green star of condensed 

 endochrome in every division. 



ACHYLA PROLIFERA. 



I have come reluctantly to the end of the vegetable 

 slides, and upon each have said so little of all that there 

 was to say, that I can .only hope my few words may prove 

 very unsatisfactory, and so send the reader to better works 

 and to the study of that open volume which lies around us, 

 the hieroglyphics of which our microscope deciphers for us. 

 Only one more little plant I will mention : it cannot be 

 mounted, but you may raise it for yourself in a glass of 

 water at any time. It is a parasitic plant on dead animal 

 substances in water, and produces the zoo-spores of which 

 we have been speaking. Throw two or three dead flies in 

 a glass of water; and in a few days they will be covered 

 with a cloudy film of minute colourless filaments ; that is 

 the plant Achyla prolifera. 



I will describe what I saw the first time I examined it. 

 I found one day in a small glass tank a dead larva of some 

 aquatic insect, covered with a transparent rr.ould, and on 

 examining it with a half-inch object-glass, saw a mass of 

 delicate white filaments. Some of these were filled with 

 green granules in constant motion, and as I watched them 

 the filament under observation began to expand into a club- 

 shaped head, and the granules to form into small angular 

 bodies, moving slowly round and round. The progress 



