324 General Notes. [April, 



per cent., bodies which he considered identical with those before 

 spoken of were found, like little accessory nuclei, and these be- 

 haved with coloring reagents in precisely the same manner as 

 "ules of fresh 

 >f osmic acid, tin 

 pear ; but if the cellules ■< 



figures, the second illustrated. 



He first named the bodies "little worms" (Wurmchen) but 

 afterwards gave them the title of Cytozoa, and his ultimate con- 

 clusion as to-their nature was the singular one that they are the 

 result of death, one portion of the protoplasm dying, while the 

 other becomes more active, frees itself from the dead portion and 

 survives awhile. It is probable that the first name given by 

 Gaule foreshadowed the true nature of these bodies. 



Professor E. Ray Lankester (Quar. Jour. Mic. Sci., 1882, 53) con- 

 siders these bodies to be cell-parasites. He says that in 1871 he 

 described in the same journal certain sausage-like parasites from 

 the blood of Rana esculenta, and suggested that they might be 

 connected with the life-cycle of Try vis (Gruby), at 



the same time pointing out their. resemblance to certain peculiar 

 spores found in cysts of a gregarine parasitic in Tubifex. 



As Dr. Gaule gave no figures in his first article, it was sup- 

 posed that he had been studying some of those curious phe- 

 nomena of disintegrating blood-corpuscles that attract the atten- 

 tion of histologists ; but the figures accompanying the second 

 paper showed at once that they were cell-parasites belonging to 

 the Gregarinidse and identical with the organisms described by 

 Lankester in 1871. Certain Gregarinidae (Sporozoa) are now 

 known to be cell-parasites during a portion of their lives, and 

 those organisms have of late been considerably studied. One of 

 these sporozoa ( Gregarines velues) inhabits the sperm polyblasts of 

 the earth-worm. Butschli has shown that sometimes the gregarines 

 of the earth-worm penetrate epithelial cells of the ciliated fun- 

 nels of the spermatic duct, and will continue attached to the cell by 

 one extremity when they have attained fifty times the linear 

 dimensions of the cell. 



Eimer observed oviform psorosperms ( ' Coccidium Leuckartj in 

 the house-mouse, and Aimee Schneider has discovered in the 

 pseudonaviculae tk Monocystis lumbrici and other gregarines falci- 

 form corpuscles resembling those figured by Gaule. Schneider's 

 observations establish the relationship between these curious 

 bodies, such as Eimer's Coccidium, and the typical gregarines. 



The bodies found in the frog resemble Eimer's Coccidium of the 

 mouse both in form and size; and also bear a close likeness to 

 the falciform corpuscles found in the spores of a gregarine 

 which occurs in the striated muscular fibers of the pig, sheep- 



