MisceUaneons. 247 



I might add here that I have had for a time, in a winter fernery, 

 a large Xew-Jersey specimen of Amhhjstoma tif/rinum, a foot in 

 length. It is nocturnal in its habits, and remains during the day in 

 its burrow. This extends through the long diameter of its prison, 

 and has three outlets, which it keeps open. From one of them, as 

 evening approaches, it projects its head, and watches Avith attention 

 what is transpiring in the room. 



In the same case are specimens of the common Flethodon cinereus, 

 of both varieties. During this, as in former years, I obserA'e that 

 this species is nocturnal, and is a great climber. They will climb 

 the rachis of a most slender fern or spear of grass, and lie in a coil 

 on the end of a tall frond or other narrow support which may be 

 sufficient to bear their weight, at a height of a foot or eigliteen 

 inches above the ground. They climb a plate of glass with great 

 ease, by adhering closely to its smooth surface with their moist 

 abdomen. When disturbed on some high perch among the herbage, 

 they leap away by a sudden unbending of the coiled body, in the 

 manner of some caterpillars. — Silliman^s American Journal, Feb. 

 1871. 



Note on the Infusoria fiageUata and the Sponrjice ciUatce. 

 By Prof. H. James-Claek, Kentucky University. 



I send this note in hopes that it may be of interest to those 

 readers of this Journal who have foUowcd the recent discussions 

 upon spontaneous generation and the doctrine of evolution. It is 

 an effort to clear up the chaos of uncertainty which has reigned 

 among the lower Protozoa for years past, and particularly in the 

 heterogeneous group of so-called Sponges. The aim of the evolu- 

 tionists is clearly, by refusing to recognize their truly organized 

 structure, to depress these creatures to such a low level in grade 

 that they shall appear but a step above the lifeless protoplasm which 

 some think has been seen almost manufactured in the laboratory of 

 the chemist. After hypotheticaUy developing " organizable proto- 

 plasm " out of " inferior types of organic substances," which in the 

 process, per se, under " the mutual influences " of its metamoi-j)hic 

 forms, generates still more sensitive organic matter, until it finally 

 attains to the possession of vital actions, the evolutionist imagines 

 himself able "deductively to bridge the interval" between the so- 

 caUed " nascent life " and the unmistakable vitalism of the slimy 

 Rhizopod. (See Herbert Spencer, Aj^pleton's Journal, Aug. 7, 18G9, 

 p. 508.) 



My own researches have constantly tended in the opposite direc- 

 tion. In spite of the apparent physical simplicity of even the lowest 

 of the Protozoa (Anueha and the like), their habits and the pheno- 

 mena attendant upon their mode of locomotion, their determinate 

 prehensile acts, so wonderfully like consciousness of an end to be 

 accomplished, and their undeniably specialized digestive functions, 

 all lead to the conclusion, which with me is a fact, that they possess 



