HO 



■Scientific Intelligence. [no. 4, nkw serins, 



tract ibility to execute the most varied movements. These sper- 

 maloEOlda so soon as they are able to disperse themselves in the 

 cavity of the Volvox, quickly crowd around the female cells into 

 which they eventually penetrate ; arrived there, they attach them- 

 selves by the beak to the plastic globule, destined in each cell to 

 form a spore, and with which they are gradually incorporated. 

 Fecundation having been thus effected, the reproductive globule 

 becomes enveloped successively by an integument exhibiting coni- 

 cal pointed eminences and by an interior smooth membrane ; the 

 chlorophyll which it contained is now replaced by starch grains and 

 a red or orange coloured oil. This is the condition of the spore at 

 maturity and occasionally forty of these bodies may be counted 

 in a single globe of Volvox. The germination of these reproduc- 

 tive bodies has not yet been. observed, so that their history cannot 

 be regarded as complete : but from analogy it may, in the mean- 

 while, be assumed that they germinate in the same way as do the 

 spores of JSdogonium Sphocroplea, and other Algce belonging to 

 the same order. It may be maintained moreover, as certain 

 that the Spharosira volvox, Ehr., is nothing else than a monoe- 

 cious Vvlvox fjlobator ; that his Volvox stellatus is also V. vio- 

 lator, observed at the time when it is filled with stellate spores, 

 and, lastly, that the V. aureus of the same author differs from 

 the other forms of the same species, simply in the smooth [and 

 coloured] condition of the spores." — Journal Microscop. Society, Vol. 

 Y,page 149, No. XIX for 1857. 



It must be added that Professor Coiin is by no mean3 the first 

 discoverer of the true nature of the Volvocince. 



At the meeting of the Microscopic Society of London on the 

 26th May 1852 a paper on " the structure and development of 

 Volvox ghbator and its relations to other unicellular plants" was 

 read by Mr. George Busk, F. R. S. followed by a copious Appen- 

 dix in the Oct. of the same year. Between which Professor William- 

 son also submitted a paper on " the farther elucidation of the 

 structure of V. ghbator*' at the meeting of the 21st June, These 

 papers which go into the subject at great length are of too techni- 

 cal a character to suit the purpose of this Journal. 



