SEA-FISHERIES LABORATORY. 149 



Whether, owing to differences in nutrition and chemical 

 metabolism, the remarkable chromatic reticular-centres 

 could have arisen instead, it is now scarcely necessary to 

 discuss, for while this note was being prepared for the 

 printers I received from Mr. A. Scott, at Piel, another 

 equally infected specimen, which turned out to be a 

 male. This, of course, left me with only the parasitic 

 alternative, as one cannot imagine such an abnormal 

 ovarian development occurring in a male. 



Perhaps the chief reason why I gave so much con- 

 sideration to the above hypothesis was because the bodies 

 are so utterly unlike any known Protozoan. The para- 

 site, for which I propose the name Lymphocystis 

 johnstonei, is, in truth, the strangest Sj)orozoan (this being 

 the only class in which it can possibly be placed) that I 

 am aware of, and until I obtain further stages in its life- 

 history, I can only interpret the above-described features 

 in very general terms. Ect. may well represent the 

 ectoplasm, now modified into an ectorind, while cud. 

 corresponds to endoplasm. Presumably the large 

 nucleus is the vegetative or " trophic " nucleus, although 

 in this respect Lymphocystis differs from any known 

 Sporozoan, in that while sporulation is proceeding (for 

 what else can the chromatic centres represent?), the vege- 

 tative nucleus persists undivided. In a Myxosporidian, 

 spore-formation certainly goes on during the trophic 

 phase of the life-cycle, but here there are many nuclei, 

 some only of which originate reproductive-organellse, the 

 others continuing vegetative in function. This single 

 nucleus in our parasite recalls more the condition in 

 Grregarines, but there the original nucleus breaks up 

 altogether at the close of the trophic period to form repro- 

 ductive nuclei. x\or in the Sporozoan " lumber-room " 

 (already well filled) is there anything similar. The sole 

 form with which Lymphocystis seems to have any point of 



