LITERARY AND SCIENTIFIC NOTES. 391 



of London ;" M. le Dr. Guggonbiilil, fomiatcnr ct directcur de I'asile ponr lea 

 cretins a TAbendburg (canton do Berne), "Sur la necessity d'nne Statistique 

 Europc'enne du Cretinisme et de 1 Idiotie ;" Mrs. Fison, " Women's Work in 

 Saiiitary and Social Reform ;"' M. le Oomte de Larnage, fondatcur de Tasilo 

 agricole pour les epileptiques a Tain (Drome), "L'Epllepsie considfrec au point 

 de vue social et charitable;" Mr. E. Chadwick, C.B, '-Recent Sanitary Im- 

 provements in England, and tbeir Results ;'" M. G. Rollin-Jacqucmyns, " De 

 linstitution des prix de propreti a Gand ;" Mr. H. R Roberts, F.S. A., " Improve- 

 ments in the Dwellings of the Working Classes." 



BALBIAXI ON TRUE SEXUAL REPRODUCTION IN THE IKFUSORIA. 



The Infusoria have long been known to multiply by spontaneous fission, ex- 

 ternal germination, and the production, internally, of variously formed bodies, 

 whicli many ob.^crvers, somewhat hastily, have described under the name of 

 "embryoes." The phenomena of " encysting," "conjugation," and "alternate 

 generation' (so called), whith these animals frequently exhibit, and the rela- 

 tion, real or supposed, between such processes and their various modes of pro- 

 pagation, have, from time to time, afforded subject-matter foi' not a little con- 

 troversy. 



Now, however, the whole aspect of this subject has been changed, and for the 

 vagueness which, less than four years ago, characterised all attempts to explain 

 the generative functions of the Infusoria, has been substituted that clear and 

 complete survey of their leading phenomena, which science has just received 

 from the pen of M. Balbiani. In his excellent summary, just brought to a con- 

 clusion, a concise, yet sufficiently detailed account is given of the structure of 

 the sexual apparatus, male and female, among the principal sub-divisions of the 

 class. The changes which this apparatus undergoes in the course of its develop- 

 ment—the evolution of the essential elements to which it gives rise, and many- 

 other particulars of interest, are all in their turn described with laudable 

 minuteness and precision. Compelled, at times, to correct the mistakes of 

 others, he in no wise shrinks from avowing the errors into which he himself fell 

 at the commencement of his inquiries ; nor docs he hesitate to point out the 

 difficulties of interpretation whicli beset him at each successive stage of their 

 progress. Perhaps future investigators may, in some degree, require a more 

 qualified statement of views which M. Balbiani, in common with most of his 

 readers, now considers beyond the reach of cavil. Yet, even with this restric- 

 tion, it does not seem too much to say that a single observer has done more to 

 establish on a secure basis a right knowledge of the sexual phenomena of the 

 Infusoria than the collective body of his predecessors in the same field of in- 

 quiry. — From the Quarterly Journal of Microscopical Science. 



