134 Prof. H. James-Clark on the KSpongise ciliatge 



tific community in regard to tlie nature of the Sponge. The 

 question has been, is it an animal or is it a plant ? Bowerbank, 

 the highest classificatory authority upon this subject, for a 

 long term of years held that it was an animal ; but his hoses 

 for this theory were such that they did not appear to offer a 

 satisfactory means of finally deciding the dispute. The latter 

 remark applies with equal force to the investigations of Lieber- 

 kiihn. Of later years Carter has made some special investi- 

 gations in reference to this subject, and in fact he has been the 

 first to present anything like decisive proofs of the animality 

 of the Sponge. A few words quoted from his paper, which he 

 published in the '■ Annals and Magazine of Natm-al History ' 

 for April 1857, vol. xx. p. 30, will suffice to show to what ex- 

 tent he has carried his observations. Speaking of the " mono- 

 ciliated sponge-cells of the ampullaceous sac," which, he says, 

 was set free by the disintegration of the whole mass of the 

 sponge, he remarks that " particles .... were thrown [by the 

 flagellum] almost point-blank on its surface, and rapidly passed 

 into the interior." Strangely enough, though, as it seems to 

 me now, he does not look upon the intussusception of the 

 particles as a genuine process of swallowing, like that which 

 obtains among the ciliated Infusoria, but describes it in several 

 places, when speaking of the various kinds of sponge-cells, as 

 an enveloping of the food after the manner of Amoeba. It is 

 plain, therefore, that he does not believe that the " sponge- 

 cells " are endowed with a mouth \ and moreover, if I am not 

 mistaken, he attributes to any part of the " cell " the faculty of 

 engulfing food. This interpretation, therefore, would exclude 

 the Sponge from the list of Flagellata, notwithstanding the 

 presence of the jlagellum. That, however, does not weaken 

 the proof as to the animality of this organism, but merely 

 leaves it (as Mr. Carter believes it to be) in the most intimate 

 alliance with the naked Rhizopoda ; and, as if to confirm this 

 conclusion, the same authority adds, " These monociliated 

 sponge-cells present the contracting vesicle* in great activity, 

 but also in variable plurality." I believe, however, that the 

 " variable plurality" of the contracting vesicles does not alone 

 belong to the Ehizopoda, but, as I shall show hereafter f, that 

 it is also to be observed among the true Flagellata ; and I 

 would remark, moreover, that when we consider the close re- 

 lationship (which I hope to prove in this paper) of the Sponge 

 to the other flagellate monad-like Infusoria, which undoubtedly 



* Already noticed by him, in 1847, in the Trans. Bombay Med. and 

 Phys. Soc. (abstract in Ann. & Mag. Nat. Hist. 1848). 



t iialpiiigoica vian'nus, n. sp., § 8, and S. (unphoridium^ n. sp., § 9. 



