\ 



F also living. 





\ 





Dr. A. Gruber on Protozoa. 317 



tricha occurred in great abundance in a basin in my father's 

 garden in Genoa, in which a number of green Flagellata were 



The colonies consisted of long repeatedly bifurcating fila- 

 ments, which were sometimes attached to the bottom or the 

 side walls of the vessel in which I kept the animals, and 

 sometimes hung down from the surface of the water. These 

 filaments themselves appeared to be coloured green by the 

 innumerable Stickotrichce which were seated upon them. In 

 fig. 6 I have endeavoured to represent the end of such a fila- 

 ment magnified 40 diameters. 



The filament itself consists of nothing but the gelatinous 

 material of the numerous tubes which the Stichotrickm have 

 formed, and which have gradually become amalgamated into 

 a common mass, to which quantities of all sorts of foreign 

 bodies (Diatoms, faeces, and the like) have attached themselves. 

 It shows the same analogy with the colony of a Flagellate 

 Infusorian (Spongomonas) figured by Stein (Organismus d. 

 Inirisionsth. Bd. iii. i. Taf. vi. fig. 11) as the carapace of my 

 Stichotricha socialis with those of other Flagellate Infusoria, 

 e. g. Rhipidodendron and Phalansterium. The Infusoria are 

 seated at the periphery of the filament or tube ; and then we 

 see that each of them inhabits a tube of its own, in which it 

 slips to and fro. The tubes may often be pretty long ; but 

 they never ramify, which must be due to the fact that in the 

 division of the Stichotricha one half emigrates and settles 

 itself between the other Infusoria. The more the settlement 

 takes place at the apex the longer does the filament become. 



As regards the Stichotricha itself, it shows nothing at all 

 remarkable, on which account I have not investigated it more 

 particularly. The animal measured about 01 millim., and 

 j was distinguished from others of its genus only by the green 



corpuscles in the interior *. 



A second variety of the genus Stichotricha I found in a 

 small aquarium of the Zoological Institute here. AVhile 

 Stichotricha secunda produces regular tubes, Stichotricha 

 socialis dendritically branched tubes, and the form just de- 

 scribed filiform or cylindrical colonies, the last-mentioned 

 Infusorian constructs irregular domiciles, usually hand-shaped, 

 in which the individual tubes issue like fingers from a broad 



o 



flat surface. Frequently, also, we find Stichotiichce which 

 | do not live in societies, but in separate irregular tubes formed 



amongst all sorts of decomposed matters. The Infusorian 



* I have a recollection of having fuiind a notice somewhere of a green 

 variety of Stichotricha ; but unfortunately I cannot cite the passage. 



