ZOOLOGY AND BOTANY, MICROSCOPY, ETC. 249 



them. Food is seized by and inclosed in a long pseudopodium, 

 and is ultimately massed into small round nutriment-balls. Encys- 

 tation takes place from June to September ; tbe sarcode previously 

 becomes almost opaque with nutritive substances, wbicb later are 

 resolved into strongly refractive oily globules of different sizes ; the 

 pseudopodia are withdrawn, the epipodia become shortened, the 

 contractile vacuoles disappear, the nucleus becomes invisible, and 

 the body withdraws more and more into the hinder part of the test, 

 extruding various excreta such as diatom-shells, which are massed 

 in the mouth of the test, forming the diaphragm, which becomes 

 yellowish, probably from iron oxide, 



Taranek fully describes and figures with some classificatory and 

 distributional tables the species obtained in Bohemia: viz. Nehela 

 collaris; flabellulum ; carinata; Idppocrepis Leidy ; hur sella Vejdovsky ; 

 hohemica, a new species with compressed shell without processes, an 

 oval entire pseudopodial opening, provided with a short neck; 

 americana, a new species with a shell not compressed, flask-shaped, 

 and devoid of spines ; Heleopera petricola Leidy ; Quadrula symmetrica 

 F. E. Schulze ; Lecquereusia spiralis Butschli ; and a new generic type 

 called Corythion dvhium, as yet only known by the test ; this is small, 

 has a pale yellow tint, is more or less broadly oval, and the pseudo- 

 podial opening is subterminal, roundish or oval to half-moon shaped, 

 resembling that of Trinema acinus ; it is made up of very small, oval, 

 silicious plates (often round near the opening), arranged irregularly, 

 and imbedded in the chitinous layer. 



BOTANY. 



A. G^ENEHAIi, including Embryology and Histology 

 of the Phanerogamia. 



Living and Dead Protoplasm.* — O. Loew returns to the subject 

 of the different reactions of silver salts on living and dead proto- 

 plasm. By a fresh series of experiments he claims to have confirmed 

 his previous results that the albumen of living cells alone has the 

 power of reducing the silver, the death of the cell causing a chemical 

 change in the albumen which deprives it of this power. 



Aldehydic Nature of Protoplasm. f — A. B. Griffiths, after reference 

 to the work of Loew and Bokorny, Eeinke, and others, as well as to 

 a previous communication of his own,J describes his new experiments. 



He has examined the protoplasm of living and dead cells of 

 Spirogyra, and finds that it reduces alkaline solutions of cupric salts ; 

 that crystals are found in it by treatment with weak sodium chloride, 

 and that the addition of absolute alcohol to the cells of the Spirogyra 



* Pfliiger's Arch. f. d. Ges. Physiol., xxx. (1883) pp. 348-68. Of. this 

 Journal, i. (1881) p. 906; ii. (1882) pp. 67, 361, 440, 522 ; iii. (1883) p. 225. 

 t Chem. News, xlviii. (1883) pp. 179-80. 

 % Journ, Chem. Soc— Trans., xliv. (1883) p. 195. 

 Ser. 2.— Vol. IV. S 



