100 
HicKSj on Volvox Globator. 
where whole genera of Monadina, Astasisea^ &c., have 
been distinctly proved to represent only one of the many 
phases of the respective Algse to which they belong. But 
that Afnoeba — the moving and all-devonring ^^sarcode^^ — 
and Actinophrys with its extemporised tentacles, possessing 
some of the very essentials of animal life, should belong to the 
vegetable kingdom was scarcely to be expected. 
Still we have now on record the results of the careful 
observations of three naturalists, which seem to prove that 
an Amoeboid phase occurs in the life of many vegetables. 
Dr. Hartig"^' has noticed that the antheridia of Characemj 
Polytrichum, sindMarchantia, change into Spirillum, Vibriones, 
and Monas consecutively ; and that from the fusion toge- 
ther of a number of these last, bodies are formed undis- 
tinguishable from Amoeba princeps. He remarks that, by 
some means or other, Diatomacese find their way into the 
interior of this self- moving mass, within which they circulate 
in obedience to the various currents. 
Mr. Carterf has watched the changes in the protoplasmic 
contents of the cells in Spirogyra, both conjugating and 
agamic, from which rhizopodous bodies are produced, some 
like Ammbce, others becoming precisely similar, in appearance 
at least, to Actinophrys sol. 
Dr. De Bary, as noticed in the Journal (vol. viii, p. 97), 
has lately remarked, in his examination of the Myxogastres, 
that the creeping threads of mucilaginous matter, by the 
confluence of which the fructifying mass of ^thalium is 
formed, consist of Sarcode. He also remarks, that the 
spores placed in water burst, and their contents escape, 
clothed only by a very thin primordial utricle, and furnished 
with cilia. These bodies progress as ordinary zoospores, and 
by further changes are converted into organisms precisely 
like Amcebce, from which, eventually, spore-cases are formed. 
De Bary, therefore, concludes that the Myxogastres are not 
fungi, but animals (allied to Rhizopods), and calls them 
Mycetozoa.^^ 
A fourth instance of this phenomenon occurred to myself 
in the course of some observations on Volvox, six years 
since, at the end of the summer, at the time when Volvox 
globator was changing into V. aureus ; although the appear- 
ances I allude to were noticed in V. globator, in its ordinary 
form, and in two stages of its existence. 
The first example in which I observed motion in the cell was 
* See ' Jouni. of Micros. Science/ 1856, p. 51. 
. t See ' Aiinals of Nat. Hist.,' 1857, p. 259. 
