Iteproduction o/'Euglypha alveolata, Duj. 33 



observed that two individuals just produced by division be- 

 come again comple'tely fused together. Nothing indeed is 

 said of an expulsion of the nucleus ; but to establish the 

 matter with certainty an investigation specially directed to 

 that end would be necessary. In general, however, this 

 process has a very great resemblance to what occurs in 

 Euglypha. 



1 have also observed true copulation in Euglypha, but 

 unfortunately only in one instance, and not so thoroughly as 

 1 could have wished. 



When many Euglyphce are living together one often meeta 

 with several animals which have placed themselves with their 

 shell- apertures together, and of which the plasma has become 

 amalgamated. As has already been stated, such conjugation- 

 pairs may be distinguished with certainty from the pairs pro- 

 duced by division. But in order to be absolutely certain in 

 these investigations I always got a small number (six to ten 

 individual animals) into the suspended drop, and observed 

 them here. Any conjugation-pairs that might be present 

 were taken out and isolated in another drop for further obser- 

 vation. In this way it appeared that in most cases the con- 

 jugation is again dissolved, without any noticeable change 

 having taken place in the animals. To see whether any 

 changes were perceptible in the nucleus I examined many 

 stained preparations of animals united in pairs or several 

 together, but always without result. 



The separated animals also behaved differently ; some of 

 them divided normally, while others became encysted like 

 ordinary individuals. 



Once, however, I observed the following : — In a prepara- 

 tion with a number of individual animals there were two united 

 pairs at a quarter to six in the evening of the 26th May of 

 last year (1886). Both pairs were isolated in suspended 

 drops. On May 27 no alteration was observed ; so also at 

 seven in the morning of May 28. But about seven in the 

 evening I found the condition shown in the accompanying 

 woodcut. While one pair was still unaltered, the plasma of 

 the two other individuals (I. and II.) had united, and had 

 formed from the shell-lamellffi previously in the interior of the 

 two animals a new large shell (III.) of somewhat irregular 

 shape, at the aperture of which the two original shells, com- 

 pletely empty, were attached. The length of this newly 

 formed shell was 100 /u, and its greatest breadtii 67 yu-, while 

 the average of twenty shells taken at random from different 

 culture- vessels amounted to 82 jjl for the length and 47 /x for 

 the greatest breadth. From this it appears that the newly 

 Ann. & Mag. N. Hist. Ser. 6. Vol. i. 3 



