HARDWICKE'S SCIENCE-GOSSIP. 



135 



left by a steep path among pines, at an elevation of 

 over 5000 feet the rarer plants began to appear ; 

 Potent ilia splendens (Ram.), Erigeron glabratus 

 (Hoppe), Veronica saxatilis (I-.), V. fruticulosa (L.), 

 Vicia pyrenaica (Pourr.), Ccrastium arvense (L.), var. 

 Pallasii (Vest.), Carex pallescens and C. ornithopoda, 

 were the first finds. A little way from the path in 

 some wet grassy ground, I caught sight of a con- 

 spicuous lemon-yellow flower, and going up to it 

 found it was the rare Gentiana Burscri (Lap.), a 

 beautiful plant with large light-yellow flowers 

 in whorls in the axils of leafy bracts, and 

 growing about 2 feet high ; higher up, not far 

 from the lake, grew Angelica fyrenea (Spr.), 

 a little umbellifer with dissected leaves, very 

 unlike our Angelica (Nyman places it under 

 Selinum) ; Cart/a/nine resedifolia, Scleranthus 

 uncinatus (Schur.), and S. perennis (L.). 

 The Lac de Gaube is only a small one, being 

 but 2\ m. in circumference, but the scenery 

 round is very wild and grand ; close to it 

 is the Vignemale, the highest mountain on 

 the French side of the range, I0,S20 feet, 

 on which there is a fine glacier. Unfor- 

 tunately on this occasion it was invisible on 

 account of the clouds which covered it. By 

 the lake is a white marble monument in 

 memory of an English couple, Mr. Pattison 

 and his wife, who were drowned while 

 boating on the lake during their honeymoon. 

 Ey the lake I found, Senecio adonidifolins 

 (Lois), Sinapis montana (DC), Rkododen- 

 dron ferrugineum (L.), Saxifraga muscoides 

 (Wulf), and Carduus carlinoides (Gou.). 

 Climbing up a narrow cleft in the rocky 

 bank, I came on Geicm pyrenaicum (Willd.), 

 Adenostyles albifrons, Scilla bifolia (L.), 

 Trollius europeus (L.), and last, but not least, a 

 splendid Saxifrage, S. aquatica (Lap.), a plant about 

 2 feet high, and a mass of white flowers, something 

 like S. granulata in shape, but in a dense spike. As 

 the time was now getting on, and I had a good walk 

 before me to get back, I left the lake and its wild 

 and rugged grandeur behind, and made the best of 

 my way back to Pierrefitte. 



( To be continued.) 



NOTES OX THE INFUSORIA. 



By Bernard Thomas. 



IV. 



THE Ciliata have been classified by Stein into — 

 Hololrichous, where the cilia are distributed 

 evenly over the surface, and are of one kind ; 

 Heterotricha,, unevenly, and of different kinds ; 

 Hypotricha, in which they are confined to the under 

 or oral region of the body ; 



Peritricha, in which they form a zone round the 

 body. 



The remaining forms belong to the holotrichous 

 Ciliata. 



16. Paramecium bursaria (Fig. 82 a) is about the 

 same size as P. aurelia. As the preceding species was 

 called the slipper animalcule, so this, from its rough 

 resemblance, is called the purse animalcule. Its 

 protoplasm contains chlorophyll corpuscles, which 

 are situated in the deepest layer of the ectosarc. 



Fig. 81. — I, Amphileptiis fasciola ; h. hyaline protoplasm, neck ; £-, granu- 

 lar protoplasm, body ; n, nucleus ; v, contractile space ; 2, Amphileptus 

 stained with methyl violet, showing double nucleus ; 3, Dileptus folium, 

 letters the same ; 3', neck wisted. 



They are round, and resemble in chemical reaction 

 the green corpuscles of plants. But do they subserve 

 the same function ? If so, we have an organism 

 which is in one sense physiologically plant as well as 

 animal. We will study the composition of these 

 bodies when we come to Euplotes. 



It was in Paramechim bursaria that Balbiana 

 worked out the sexual reproduction by conjugation. 

 In this process the nucleus played the part of sexual 

 organs, and it is interesting to note that the young 

 are described as acinctiform and quite different from 

 the parent. When we come to Aspidiocus we shall 

 see that it is supposed to be the larva of quite a 

 different form known as Oxytricha. 



17. Bursaria vernalis is represented in Fig. 82 b. 

 It is a form similar somewhat to P. bursaria, and like 

 it furnished with chlorophyll corpuscles, which in the 

 figure are clearly seen to be placed in the deepest 

 layer of the ectosarc. It differs in its round form, 

 whereas the latter is flat, and in the mouth, which is 

 funnel-shaped and large in P. bursaria, but small, 

 slit-like in B. vernalis. Both these forms are well 



