Pink Monads and their Enemies. 99 



I cannot pretend to say exactly where the pink Monads I shall 

 proceed to describe -may have to take their stand. 



In the beginning of December, in company with a friend, I 

 examined some ponds just beyond Highgate Archway, on the 

 left of the road, and found few symptoms of life. After many 

 ineffectual dips, I brought up a small twig of some dead plant 

 which had a reddish hue from the adhesion of minute parti- 

 cles, that a hand magnifier could make nothing of. Thinking 

 the unknown objects were probably alive, I brought them 

 home, and proceeded to examine them with a |th. The 

 sight was curious in the extreme. A few particles of the red 

 matter had been placed in a drop of water on a glass slide and 

 a thin cover over them, and when I looked through the micro- 

 scope, hundreds of little sausage- shaped things of a rose- 

 pink colour were moving through the field. They were 

 transparent, and for the most part contained little vesicles of 

 a different refractive power. Their mode of motion was 

 very peculiar. Sometimes they moved nearly horizontally, 

 with a wriggling contortion of their bodies ; at other times 

 they stood upright in the water, and spun round and round 

 about their long axis, appearing to go very fast, but in reality 

 making their tee- to-tum performance to rather slow time, as 

 was shown by the fact that under a magnification carried 

 as far as 1750 linear, by means if a -^th, the vesicular spots 

 could always be seen separated from each, other, which 

 would not have been the case if the notation had been quick. 

 The little bodies varied in size, some appearing half an inch 

 long, and others about three-quarters when magnified 1750 

 linear. The width was about one-third of the length. Both 

 smaller and larger were observed, but the majority were 

 within the limits mentioned. The colour was a beautiful rose- 

 pink, and the vesicles looked lighter or darker, according to the 

 way in which they caught the light. Some only contained a 

 few vesicles, others were stuffed full of them, as shown in the 

 drawing. A reference to Pritchard shows that they belonged to 

 the genus Cliromatium of Perty, of which the description is, 

 " body extremely small, red, brown, green, or violet in colour, 

 containing in the mature condition some internal vesicles. A 

 motor filament at the anterior extremity (?). Multiplication by 

 transverse fission.'''' In a description of Chromatium Weissii, 

 it is stated that Perty could not find the alleged motile fila- 

 ment, and I am satisfied it was not present in my specimens, 

 as their mode of progression eyidently depended upon an- 

 other sort of mechanism. No objects are more difficult to 

 make out than extremely small filaments which have as nearly 

 as possible the refractive power of water. Letting a speci- 

 men dry will not succeed with the most delicate of such 

 VOL. VII. — no. n. h 



