324 Dr. A. Gruber on Protozoa. 



I first of all brought together two small animals, and ob- 

 served that they attracted cacli other very quickly and fused 

 into a single mass, which of course when prepared proved to 

 be destitute of nucleus. Another time I brought about the 

 union of two Heliozoa of unequal size, of which I regarded 

 the smaller as non-nucleate, the larger as normal and nuclea- 

 ted; in both the vacuoles pulsated very distinctly. The 

 fusion took place here exactly as in the case previously de- 

 scribed. I waited until the small animal had passed entirely 

 into the larger one and the latter had resumed the round form, 

 and then stained it with carmine. To my astonishment no 

 nucleus appeared ; therefore even the larger of the two 

 Heliozoa, which had all the characters of a normal individual, 

 had also been without a nucleus. Illusion by insufficient 

 action of the reagents cannot have occurred in this observa- 

 tion, seeing that other examples and all sorts of other Protozoa 

 were lying together under the same glass cover, and in these 

 the nuclei became intensely coloured. A further demon- 

 stration is furnished by another case, in which two Actlno- 

 phryes of exactly similar form and with very abundant 

 vacuoles had united and begun to fuse together ; but I inter- 

 rupted the further continuance of the process, and stained the 

 mass when it had about assumed a biscuit-shape; and it 

 turned out that only one of the animals possessed a nucleus, 

 while no trace of one could be observed in the other. 



From all this w r e may therefore assert the proposition that 

 the absence of the nucleus in Actinophrys does not prevent 

 the protoplasm from performing its functions in the normal 

 fashion. 



In the Monera, although they possess no nucleus, we are 

 accustomed to see all vital phenomena pursue their course in 

 the protoplasm ; but among the Protozoa, in which the 

 presence of a nucleus is normal, one might have expected 

 from the latter a greater influence upon the protoplasm. 



It follows from this, therefore, that the nucleus has no import- 

 ance for those functions of the cell-body which are not directly 

 connected with reproduction — that is to say, movement (pseudo- 

 podium-formation), inception of food, excretion (pulsation of 

 the contractile vacuole), and growth ; it may also be without 

 influence on the external form. 



As regards the fusion-process here noticed itself, I have 

 already remarked that it can hardly have any other signifi- 

 cance for the Actinophrys than that of an increase of substance 

 by the inception of the non-nucleated individuals contained in 

 the water — just as upon one cosmical body there fall the 

 ruined fragments of another like it, which revolve in the cos- 



