﻿12 Proceedings of the Royal Physical Society. 



Beyond the eight or nine by Wright, previously alluded 

 to, I am not aware of any records of marine Flagellata or 

 Infusoria (Ciliata and Suctoria) from the area. Yet a con- 

 siderable number may be expected to occur. The summer 

 phosphorescence one occasionally sees on the Firth is most 

 likely in large measure due to the presence of certain pelagic 

 Dinofiagellata — Ceratium or Peridinium probably — but I 

 have met with no statement on the point.^ 



Of the parasitic Protozoa, there is scarcely a record definite 

 enough for faunal purposes. It is known that Trypano- 

 somes (blood-inhabiting Flagellata), Gregarines (Monocystis, 

 etc.), Coccidiidse (Coccidium of the rabbit, for instance), and 

 other Sporozoa, etc., occur, but they require to be scientific- 

 ally determined and recorded. There is a record of Eels 

 from a stagnant pond on the Isle of May, having " the 

 cornea opaque, and attacked with Gregarines and other 

 organisms."^ Dr Ashworth tells me he has found Mono- 

 cystis agilis and another species in earthworms from an 

 Edinburgh garden, and Opalina ranarum in a local frog. 

 A glance at Minchin's long list of Sporozoa and their hosts, 

 in Ray Lankester's Treatise on Zoology, will show what a 

 field for investigation there is here for anyone prepared to 

 take it up. 



The following statement will help to make clearer the 

 extent of our ignorance of the Protozoa of the area, and 

 the great possibilities of further work among them. The 

 figures given under " estimated number," while in some degree 

 of the nature of guesses, have been arrived at after careful 

 consideration of all the available data, and will, it is 

 believed, prove to be within rather than over the mark. 

 The Mycetozoa (Myxomycetes, etc.), with their " fructifica- 

 tions," and the Yolvocacese among the Flagellata, I willingly 

 leave to the botanists. Nor have I taken cognisance of the 

 Proteomyxa, the small group to which Plasmodiophora 

 hrassicce — the cause of the well-known " finger and toe " 

 disease in turnips — belongs. 



^ In this connection cf. a paper by Prof. M'Intosh in Zoologist for 1906, 

 "Infusoria" appeal's several times in the table of observations made on 

 board the "Garland" {Fish. Bd. Rpts. for 1892, etc.). 



2 G. Sandeman, Proc. Scot. Micr. Soc, vol. i. p. 172. 



