1886. } Zoology. 73 
protoplasm, and Dr. Loew took up the question as to what ex- 
actly this change was. His investigations are an important step 
in deciding this important question. Professor Stirling said this 
gave a new test for living protoplasm. The chief thing to settle 
was what exactly causes reduction of the silver. 
SPHARULARIA IN AMERICA—In 1836 Léon Dufour described 
(Annales des Sciences Naturelles, ser. 2, v. 7, p. 9), a peculiar ver- 
miform parasite, which he found in Bombus terrestris and B. horto- 
rum, to which he gave the name of Spherularia bombi, placing 
his new genus among the entozoa. In noting the occurrence of 
this genus of parasites in America, it may not be out of place to 
give some further account of it because of its unique structure 
and metamorphoses, and to enable its easy recognition. 
Dufour’s description reads: “ Teres, albido-pellucida, mollis» 
filiformis, haud annulata, undique spherulis vesiculæ formibus 
granulata, antero posticeque obtusa subrotundata.” He adds in 
the French notes which accompany the above description that 
the length is 6-8 lines, that it is not very slim since it is about a 
line in diameter, that it shows no distinction of head or tail, being 
obtuse or rounded at both ends, and that all the surface, bot 
above and below, is covered with spheroidal granulations which 
are like subdiaphanous vesicles. 
., Von Siebold, in 1838, wrote of this worm, and mentioned find- 
ing its young in bees, and that the young differed greatly from 
the supposed adult in having smooth skin, From the active 
young he saw that the worm belonged to the nematoids, but in 
the supposed adults, which were all females, he could discover no 
Motion. He further notices that its digestive apparatus {differs 
from that of all nematoids. 
_ Siebold and Stannius write, “One finds neither mouth nor anus 
in Spherularia bombi, and the intestinal canal is replaced by a 
Series of elongated cells, adhering together, and around which the 
genital organs are entwined.” 
The next naturalist to investigate this curious animal was Lub- 
bock, who published, in 1861, in the Natural History Review, a 
paper “ On Spherularia bombi” illustrated by a plate. Lubbock 
iscovered at one end of the body which Dufour had described a 
Minute nematoid worm, and-wrongly thought this minute worm 
P be the male in copulation with the large body which was the 
emale. In describing the so-called male, he is careful to state 
that he had not been able to distinguish any generative organs or 
any trace of spermatozoa, and discusses the possibility of the 
