ZOOLOGY AND BOTANY, MICROSCOPY, ETC. 801 



enough a fourth, and to all appearance similar small individual, was, 

 as often as it was brought near to the larger, rejected, even though 

 entangled in the pseudopodia in a manner which, in previous instances, 

 had "produced an attraction like that of magnetism." 



In all the above cases this blending of a nucleated individual with 

 one or more small non-nucleated ones can have no other significance 

 than that of a simple increase of the substance of the large Actinophrys, 

 which in the last instance, after the absorption of three individuals, 

 had reached its highest point, so that the animal resisted any further 

 accretion. 



On the question of conjugation, and the phenomena of repro- 

 duction connected with it, these observations throw no light ; but 

 the fact is demonstrated, that the Protista, which as perfect cells 

 possess a nucleus, are yet able to live without. It may be objected that 

 the small individuals may originate through some pathological process, 

 and not through the normal fission of the larger Actinophrys. This 

 can hardly be the sole explanation, for, first, Dr. Gruber has himself 

 observed such fission in the Actinophrys, and it occurs still more 

 frequently in the Infusoria, where one animal divides into several 

 dissimilar fragments ; while, secondly, he has found it to be the same 

 with the non-nucleated as well as with the small nucleated examples. 



All this, however, does not prevent our seeing in the non-nucleated 

 Actinophrys their general vital phenomena similar to that of a perfect 

 individual, for they show the most active protoplasmic movements in 

 their changing pseudopodia, and possess an excretion vacuole which 

 pulsates as in the normal animal, and they are also in a position to 

 take nourishment, and to digest it in another vacuole. 



A difference between the nucleated and non-nucleated animals 

 may lie in the fact that in the act of blending, the role of the smaller 

 creature is simply passive, so that the conscious action (if the ex- 

 pression may be allowed) is only on the part of the normal individual. 

 But even this failed in the following observation : An individual 

 equal in size to a full-grown Actinophrys, which, however, raised the 

 suspicion that it had no nucleus, was placed close to a small one, 

 whereupon the same process of union occurred as before. The larger 

 one, however, had no trace of a nucleus any more than the smaller, 

 although it had behaved as a nucleated animal. This case shows also 

 that the non-nucleated Actinophrys is capable of growing. 



The author, therefore, draws the following conclusions from his 

 observations : — The nucleus has no relation whatever to the part 

 which movement, nutrition, excretion, and growth play in the sur- 

 rounding protoplasm, nor to any of the physiological processes of the 

 cell-body not directly connected with reproduction. 



In the Monera, which possess no nuclei, this is easily understood, 

 but with the higher Protozoa, which normally always possess them, we 

 could hardly have expected to find their influence so wanting. Neither 

 can the shape of these creatures which, contrary to the formless masses 

 of the Monera, is more or less regular or constant, be imputed to the 

 influence of the nucleus, since the non-nucleated Actinophrys main- 

 tain the normal form. 



