8 MIDLAND NATURALIST. 
A process has been described in which two individual desmids 
conjugate,each semicell of one with a corresponding semicell of 
another individual, the result being the formation of two zygospores 
from a single conjugation of only two desmids. In Cosmarium 
bioculatum only a single individual desmid was ever noticed to 
effect the formation of the spore. The latter was devoid of spines 
and resembled the ordinary zygospore reported for the individual. 
Some attempts were made to obtain the subsequent stages 
of the development of resting spore in the laboratory and in the 
field. Though the material remained in the spore state for months 
it eventually disappeared and in the laboratory this was principally 
ue to the ravages of minute water insects that could not be 
eliminated from the aquaria. In attempts to study field material 
no better results were obtained. Late in the summer the stream 
had dried up, not however, before all the desmid forms had dis- 
appeared. The following year, as already stated, practically no 
desmids were found and absolutely no Cosmarium bioculatum. 
Nothing but some ordinary forms of algae such as Vaucheria 
sessilis and Vaucheria dichotoma, (Lyngb.) Ag. some small forms 
of Spirogyra, Zygnema insigne, and vegetative Mougeotia scalaris. 
A Biological Study of Noctiluca miliaris, Suriray. 
A. M. KinsCH, 
Some months ago there was sent to the Zoological laboratory 
of the University of Notre Dame, a vial containing what proved 
to be Noctiluca, collected on the Oregon shore of the Pacific Ocean, 
and with the specimen a request was made what it might be. 
Noctiluca is a comparatively well known animal in zoological 
literature, and Dr. O. Bütschli in his work on the Protozoa, which 
forms the first volume of Bronn’s "Klassen und Ordnungen” 
mentions no less than forty-one authors that speak either directly 
or indirectly of this highly interesting flagellate protozoan. Our 
experience above referred to illustrates that many workers in 
Zoology need more than the classical literature to identify the 
many curious animals they now and then meet with. It is not the 
primary purpose of the Midland Naturalist to publish exhaustive 
memoirs or treatises for specialists i in Biology, but rather to give 
