Ophrydium Versatile. 25 



OPHRYDIUM VERSATILE. 



BY REV. W. HOUGHTON", M.A., E.L.S. 



(With a Tinted Plate.) 



A FEW remarks on this extremely interesting form of infusorial 

 life may be acceptable to the readers of this magazine, many of 

 whom, it is probable, have never been fortunate enough to see 

 these bright green balls to which Ehrenberg has given the name 

 of Ophrydium versatile. I find immense numbers of these balls 

 in the clear water of a canal near my house, and should be 

 happy to send specimens to any microscopic readers of the 

 Intellectual Observer, who may be particularly anxious to 

 make the acquaintance of our versatile friend, provided such 

 requests do not come in overwhelming numbers. At first sight 

 an observer would be inclined to refer these vividly green 

 masses to the vegetable kingdom; indeed, some years ago, 

 botanists did claim them for their own, and gave the produc- 

 tion in question the appropriate name (so far as external form 

 is concerned) of Nostoc pruniforme ; but no apple or green-gage 

 plum is worthy, in point of colour, to be compared with good 

 specimens of Ophrydium. 



In PritcharcPs last edition of the Infusoria (p. 598) Ophrydium 

 is arranged with the genera Tintinnus, Vaginicola, and Cotlmrnia, 

 and forms with them the family Ophrydina. This is Ehrenberg's 

 arrangement, which, however, is very unsatisfactory. Stein and 

 Dugardin refer the four genera just named to the Vorticellina 

 group ; it is, I think, impossible to study the characters of the 

 individuals which belong to those genera, and not feel con- 

 vinced that their true affinities are with that family. 



There is very great difference of opinion with regard to the 

 classification of the infusoria, and the various systems which 

 have been proposed must, as Mr. J. Reay Green observes, " be 

 regarded as premature, since we know so little of the life 

 history of these animals that it is by no means improbable that 

 many apparently distinct species are nothing more than transi- 

 tional conditions of more adult forms." We may, however, I 

 think, refer Ophrydium to the Vorticellina, without being very far 

 from the mark. Fig. A represents a couple of Ophrydium balls 

 attached to a piece of Anacharis alsinastrum. So far as I am 

 aware one species alone of Ophrydium has been described, viz., 

 0. versatile. It is thus characterized in Pritchard's Infusoria: — 

 " Body fusiform, tapering to a fine extremity from behind the 

 middle, and anterior to it contracted into a cylindrical neck, sup- 

 porting a funnel-shaped head, surmounted by an annular peris- 

 ton!, with a ciliated rotary disc. The mouth opens into a narrow 



