MIDLAND NATURALIST. I5 
crude mode of circulation analogous to that of the higher animals. 
The minute granules of the enchylema may be analogous to the 
blood corpuscles. Wherever we observe in living things this 
streaming movement of the protoplasm, the granules seem to be the 
food carriers. The location of the food vacuoles in the interior 
of protoplasm corresponds to a primitive digestive system. From 
these interior food masses, the meshes radiate in all directions and 
from them likewise the streaming of the protoplasm proceeds. 
Careful observation will reveal the method of the ingestion of the 
- food and its rapid digestion in the food vacuoles, (extemporized 
stomachs) as also the egestion of the undigested particles by the 
same opening through which ingestion took place. Thus in the 
unicellular animals we have all the physiological functions exhib- ' 
ited in their simplest ways. We realize here the meaning of the 
expression of Carnoy: "It is therefore to the cell, that abvss of 
littleness, that we must descend to seize life in its material source 
and wrest from it some of its secrets." Dr. Winfield S. Hall, 
professor of Physiology of Northwestern College of Medicine, also 
aptly gave utterance to this truth: “No one can do real and serious 
work in human physiology, who has not mastered Cytology.', 
Noctiluca possesses no differentiated nervous system but as it 
shows irritability as produced by the nervous system of the higher 
animals we refer this characteristic to its undifferentiated proto- 
plasm. 
The process of reproduction is the last physiological function 
to which we may call attention in Noctiluca. The mode of repr- 
duction is by cell division and by budding, in each the nucleus 
takes the prominent part in the process. We can not go further 
into detail in describing the methods, but for information we must 
refer the reader to the classical works among which we might quote 
Bronn’s “Classen und Ordnungen.” 
To study the bio-chemistry of Noctiluca we might apply the 
various reagents and stains to determine the nature of the struc- 
tures of the animal. Thus, osmic acid, as we saw, stains the fat 
globules ebony black. Methyl green, which Carnoy calls the 
“touchstone” of nuclein will reveal the fragmental pieces of the 
nucleus to be composed of the nuclein of Meyen. There are other 
reagents that will show the reticulum to be composed of plastin 
and the cuticle of elastin. From a large number of Noctiluca, 
collected in bulk, we could extract several soluble frements such as 
diastase and pepsin. Though we have not given as complete a 
study of this wonderful phosphorescent animal as we might have 
