224 A BOTANICAL EXCURSION IN MY OFFICE. 
Let us study the former of these. Imagine our plant 
under the microscope, just as some one or more of its 
cells are to be sacrificed for the production of a new life. 
Watch that cell. See the endochrome, or green contents, 
gathering itself by an imperceptible motion into a con- 
densed mass at the distal end of the cell. Now a separa- 
tion is evidently taking place between this cell and the 
next at its distal end. Slowly they part from one another, 
remaining attached at one corner, so as to open like a 
hinge until the sundered parts, instead of being in one 
continuous line, lie side by side more or less parallel to 
one another, and a free opening is left at the end of the 
cell. Slowly the mass of endochrome continues to move, 
so slowly, that, even with a very high power, the motion 
is imperceptible. Perchance the outlet seems too narrow 
for it, and, in twisting itself out of it, the plastic mass 
assumes various shapes constricted in the middle where 
the orifice is. It continues, however, to advance, until at 
last it is out of the cell in the free 
ocean around it. (Fig.1.) It "Eg" 
2S now recovers very quickly its =e 
ortly after Shape, and is a bright green, 
zobspore “ i À 
Gdogonium growing in globular or oval mass, with “fied to 
oh deed ToT end. As I have seen the species 
under consideration, this little ball is at first coated with a 
transparent gelatinous material, which rapidly dissolves off 
in the water. Let us keep our eye still fixed on the ball. 
See! the coating is nearly gone, and, is it true? the little 
bali begins to rock without apparent cause. Now it rocks 
faster and faster, and now it is gone out of the field like 
an arrow. Here it comes back, moving hither and yo? 
‘now very rapidly, now with a slow laterally rolling 
