ZOOLOGY AND BOTANY, MICKOSCOPY, ETC. 521 



conversion of white blood-corpuscles into Trypanosoma (or Kymato- 

 cytes as Gaule proposes to call them) may be observed on the warm 

 stage. 



The transmutation of the white corpuscles is said to take place as 

 follows :— At one point in the periphery of the corpuscle is developed 

 a vibrating flagellum from which is subsequently but gradually pro- 

 duced a hyaline undulating ribbon ; ultimately the whole body 

 becomes flattened out and the flagellum degenerates into a pointed 

 process of the lobate mass thus formed. The fully developed 

 kymatocytes show 6uch exuberant multiplicity of forms that the 

 writer is able to distinguish no fewer than five types among them. 

 Conversely, however, the Trypanosoma have the power of being 

 re-converted into leucocytes with amoeboid movements. Gaule, 

 according to his showing, has directly observed the process of re- 

 conversion, which he describes, many times, and he elucidates it by 

 pictorial representations of the successive stages. 



One circumstance which appears to be of special importance in the 

 matter is not made clear in the memoir, namely that as the white 

 blood-corpuscles of the frog are known to be provided with a number 

 of small nuclei, the Trypanosoma ought also to exhibit them, but 

 neither are they described or do any cell-nuclei appear in the figures. 

 This point seems to Prof. 0. Biitschli * the more important, because 

 in the life-history of certain Protozoa (cf. especially Ciliophrys Cienk.), 

 amoeboid and flagellate stages succeed one another, so that a similar 

 alternation in the life-history of Trypanosoma proves nothing of itself 

 as against their Protozoan nature. Indeed, the very point whether 

 these amoeboid bodies whose transmutation gives rise to the Trypa- 

 nosoma, really are white blood-corpuscles, appears to Prof. Biitschli 

 to be by no means free from uncertainty notwithstanding the present 

 investigations. Prof. Lankester also considers f Dr. Gaule's views to 

 be " devoid of justification." 



New Gregarines4 — Dr. E. Eossler found in the enteric canal 

 (chiefly the caeca) of the Phalangida, among other parasites, two 

 Gregarines which appeared to be new. Actinocephalus fissidens 

 n. sp. has twelve pairs of cleft hooks on its head, and between each 

 paii- there is a simple spiniform process. Stylorhynchus caudatns has 

 the " head " placed on a stalk, and provided with twelve ridges or 

 projections, which extend beyond the margin of the head and then 

 divide. This form is also provided with a delicate caudiform ap- 

 pendage, which is not separated from the body proper by any septum. 

 In some cases these parasites were so numerous that the death of the 

 host may be ascribed to their presence. 



* Zool. Jahresber. Neapel, i. (1880) p. 165-6. 

 t Quart. Journ. Micr. Sci., xxii. (18S2) p. 65. 

 % Zeitschr. f. wiss. Zool., xxxvi. (1882) p. 700 (2 figs.). 



