87 



By these observations one will acknowledge, that there seems 

 to be some relation between the number of oildroplets inside and 

 outside the green algae. What relation — in the experiments under 

 consideration — is not yet quite clear to me, I consider direct 

 ejection of the oildroplets by the algae to be excluded, not only 

 because of what I mentioned above, but even more because of 

 what I am going to say (5). I believe, that this relation is 

 more likely to be in the stages of „solution" of the algae, 

 the colourless ones with and without structure, about which I 

 spoke on p. 42 and 43. There are also some indications for it in 

 Table 11. 



5. Also in the amoebocytes of colourless sponges, so in amoe- 

 bocytes with but few green algae, there are numbers of oildroplets 

 in the protoplasm. In Spongilla their average number in these 

 amoebocytes of colourless specimina from darkness is even some- 

 what higlier than in the amoebocytes of green sponges from the 

 light, i. e. than in amoebocytes filled with green algae (in which 

 the oildroplets are formed). See Table 12. From this follows that, 

 very likely, there is no question at all about ejecting of oil- 

 droplets (or their constituent parts) by the green algae; for if 

 this were really the case, the amoebocytes of green sponges from 

 light had to contain ever so many more oildroplets than those of 

 colourless sponges from dark, while on the contrary the latter 

 appeared to lodge even more than the former. 



Perhaps one might be inclined to explain this last fact as being 

 caused by a larger consumption of the oildroplets in a green 

 sponge in light than in a sponge in dark. In the first place I 

 have to answer then that, as the amoebocytes are exactly the 

 cells in which the green algae are especially to be found within 

 the sponge body (p. 16) — which cells therefore may be con- 

 sidered as being the place of production of the oildroplets — at 

 any rate at least in them there should still be something to be 

 seen of that larger production in green sponges in light. And in 

 the 2öd place it would be a mere chance, that this supposed 

 increased consumption of oildroplets in a green sponge in light 

 should exactly counterbalance the ever so much larger produc- 



