80 SUMMABY OF CUERENT RESEARCHES RELATING TO 



small mass of homogeneous plasma, whicli grows, and clear nuclei 

 appear in the interior, each of which is surrounded by a layer of 

 plasma ; these are the young spores. Their substance condenses, 

 they take an oval form, and the nucleus ceases to be visible. The ripe 

 spores are identical in size and appearance with the " corpuscles " 

 developed in silk-worms attacked with pelvine. They resemble the 

 spores of some Bacilli, B. amylobader for instance, and their mode of 

 germination is nearly the same, that is, it is effected by the perfora- 

 tion of the spore at one of its extremities and the exit of the interior 

 plasma, but instead of taking the form of a rod, as in the Bacilli, it 

 escapes as a small amoeboid mass, which reproduces the vegetative 

 phase of the parasite. 



Another species of microsporidia was found in an Orthoptera, 

 Platycleis grisea, and like the former, in the epithelial cells of the 

 stomach. 



Development of Gregarinse and Coccidia.* — Gregarines of the 

 genus Stylorhynchus are found by Schneider to produce rosary-spores ; 

 the contents of these spores consist at first of granular protoplasm 

 with large spherical nucleus, but subsequently become converted, in 

 each case, into eight falciform bodies, each with a separate nucleus. 

 If to the mature spores is added, under the Microscope, some fluid from 

 the intestine of a Blaps, they open spontaneously along their convex 

 border, and the sporozoites issue by the movements of their anterior 

 extremity. If observed for some time, they seem to endeavour to 

 penetrate the subjacent surface, which would under normal conditions 

 be an epithelium. Observations of the tissues of the Blaps seem 

 to Schneider to confirm this supposition ; for on macerating the 

 intestine, its cells are found each to contain, by the side of its nucleus, 

 a body identical with a Coccidium, viz. provided with a nucleus of 

 its own and occurring in all conditions from the earliest stage up to 

 that at which it issues into the alimentary tract by bursting the cell 

 which incloses it. In order to assume the Monocystis-iorm, it has 

 now to divide into segments. The original nurse-cell persists as a 

 cap on the head of the Stylorhynchus. 



Coccidia. — Spores of the genus Klossia develope as follows : — 

 Directly after the formation of the cyst, the nucleus consists of a wall, 

 a nuclear liquid, and a freely suspended nucleolus, consisting of an 

 external, dense, and an internal, more fluid, layer ; there is no reti- 

 culum. In the following stages the nucleus buds out globules one 

 by one — to the number of 30 in one instance observed — which form a 

 bunch upon it. These bodies probably grow at the expense of the 

 nuclear liquid ; the nucleolus diminishes in proportion to their 

 growth : they seem to undergo fission, for some are found constricted 

 across the middle and inflated at their extremities. In the next 

 stage the wall of the nucleus disappears, and the globules are set at 

 liberty among the granular contents of the cyst. The globules reach 

 the periphery, apparently by automatic movements ; they subdivide 

 frequently in the cortical zone of the cyst, and during the process 



* Complex Ren.lus, xcv. (1882) pp. 47-8. 



