ZOOLOGY AND BOTANY, MICROSCOPY, ETC. 885 



process of translation. Patience and care will be rewarded by the 

 fact that certain Bacilli will be seen to start into movement, while 

 their neighbours remain quiet ; they twist on themselves, and perform 

 movements of flexion, gyration, and rapid translation, after the fashion 

 of vibrios ; a drop of acetic acid will at once stop this. 



A mode of movement was observed which, the authors think to be 

 new ; the bacilli of a flocculent deposit, obtained by the cultivation of 

 the microbia of lymph, may be seen to exhibit a slow progressive 

 movement, due to the bending of the body, and comparable to 

 creeping ; these bodies are intensely coloured by methyl-violet. 



Fermentation of Bread." — L. Boutroux has carried out a fresh 

 series of experiments to determine the question whether the fermen- 

 tation of bread is alcoholic or not. Examination of the leaven, after 

 being kneaded and soaked, showed the presence of large cells of 

 starch, delicate straight or bent filaments belonging to a bacillus, and 

 small cells with granular contents resembling SaccJiaromyces. Further 

 cultivation produced cells belonging apparently to SaccJiaromyces 

 minor Eng., as well as to other species, all traces of bacillus having 

 disappeared, while the surface was covered with a film of Mycoderma 

 vini. The presence in the leaven of four organisms was detected, 

 viz. two true yeasts, Mycoderma vini and an organism resembling 

 SaccTiarornyces, but without any power of fermenting. The abundant 

 evolution of carbonic acid gas cannot have been due to the SaccJiaro- 

 myces, the quantity of which remained small ; while the bacillus, on 

 the contrary, was abundant. The conclusion at which the author 

 arrives is that, while it is probable that a certain amount of alco- 

 holic fermentation takes place in the making of bread, by far the 

 larger portion of the fermentation is of the kind termed peptonic. 



Alg-se. 



Cell-nucleus and Pores in the Walls of Phyeoelironiacese.t— The 

 only instance at present established of the occurrence of a cell-nucleus 

 in the Phycochromaceae is by Schmitz in PJiragnomena sordidum. 

 N. Wille has now proved it by the application of pigments in the 

 case of TvlypotJirix lanata. 



In Stigonema comjpactum, the necklace-Kke cells of which are 

 connected together by a sheath, the same observer states that the cells 

 are in direct communication with one another through openings in 

 their cell-walls. When this alga passes into its Gloeocapsa condition, 

 the pores disappear, in consequence of the gelatinizing of the common 

 sheath, the separate cells then carrying on their existence as distinct 

 individuals. 



Fossil Algss.X — In a new work on fossil algge, the Marquis de 

 Saporta reiterates tbe view brought ^forward in Saporta and Marion's 

 ' Evolution of Cryptogams,' in reply to the strictures of Nathorst, 



* Comptes Kendus, xcvii. (1883) pp. 116-9. Cf. this Journal, ante, p. 690. 

 t Ber. Deutsch. Bot. Gesellsch., i. (1883) pp. 213-6. 



X Saporta, Marquis de, 'A propos des Algues Fossiles,' Paris, 1882. See 

 Nature, xxvii. (1883) p. .514. 



