ZOOLOGY AND BOTANY, MICROSCOPY, ETC. 7B9 



it also comes out divided or entire, as the case may be, when it may be 

 mounted in Canada balsam. It then presents a damascened appearance, 

 and becomes a very beautiful microscopical object, owing to the layer 

 of spicules lying more or less parallel to each other, although in 

 different directions, being immersed in the transparent light amber- 

 coloured chitinous substance of which the coat is otherwise composed. 

 The way in which the statoblast is firmly fixed to the stem of the 

 herbaceous plant on which it was found, is also peculiar, inasmuch as 

 the thick spiculiferous or external coat is continued on to the wood, 

 thus forming a kind of neck or expanded base, which is so strongly 

 attached as to bring away a portion of the wood when removed ; while 

 the " aperture," single or in plurality, varies in position on the free 

 surface. They are for the most part more or less emptied of their 

 germinal contents, and surrounded by a little sponge-structure, in 

 which the skeleton spicules are found, one of which being microspined, 

 at once distinguishes them from those of S. alba and S. Carteri, by whose 

 statoblasts respectively and only they are frequently accompanied. 



Mr. W. A. Haswell also describes * two new species of Spongilla 

 (S. sceptroides and S. botryoides) from Brisbane, and Meyenia Ramsay I 

 from New South "Wales. Only one species of Australian fresh-water 

 sponge has hitherto been described, being the one from Victoria, named 

 by Bowerbank, S. Capeicelli. Another species of Meyenia cannot yet 

 be sufficiently determined from the few spicules found. 



Protozoa. 



Butschli's Protozoa. — Nos. 10-13 of this part of Bronn's ' Thier- 

 reich ' have appeared, with plates XYII.-XL. The classification 

 of the Heliozoa is completed, and the Badiolaria also, which have 

 nearly 150 pages devoted to them ; it is pointed out, in dealing 

 with the " parasites " of the Eadiolaria, that their nutrition and 

 metabolism are really essentially aided by the presence of those guests 

 which are of vegetable origin. An account is given of the deformed 

 creature which Haeckel called Thalassicola sanguinolenta, and whichhas 

 been modified by the taking of foreign bodies into its extra-capsular 

 sarcode. It would seem to be certain that some of the group are 

 phosphorescent, but the author is not so confident that a number of 

 the forms said to dwell at the bottom of deep oceans really do so, as 

 nothing in the structure of many of them seems to afford any support 

 to the doctrine. Following Hertwig the group is divided into the 

 Peripylea and Monopylea, according to the characters of the central 

 capsule ; while the third division is that of the Ph&odaria or 

 Tripylea, of which little is as yet known. 



The concluding pages begin an account of the Sporozoa, and 

 there the Gregarinidae are chiefly dealt with. 



New Ciliate Infusoriaii.t — Mr. F. "W. Phillips describes a new 

 genus and species under the name of Calyptotricha pleuronemoides, 

 found attached to Myriophyllum. The animals are furnished with a 



* Proc. Linn. Soc. N. S. Wales, vii. (1882) pp. 208-10. 

 t Journ. Linn. Soc. (Zool.) xvi. (18S2) pp. 476-8 (1 fig.). 



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