ON THE YOLYOX GLOBATOR. 
143 
foreign bodies, the soluble portion of which it dissolves, em- 
ploying it therefore as food. Bnt whether the Amoeboids do 
the same cannot be at present affirmed ; at any rate, they have 
not been seen so to do. This peculiar movement has been 
noticed by other observers, so that we may conclude that 
under certain circumstances vegetable matter has a power of 
movement. In all probability, it is owing to certain chemical 
changes going on within. 
Again, some of the zoospores at the end of the year divide 
into a mass of ten to twenty cells, each provided with cilia at 
its outermost extremities (fig. 16). These ultimately become 
released from the parent, but their future history is unknown. 
These are the principal phenomena which have yet been ob- 
served in the Yolvox Globator. Some similar have been 
noticed in the allied forms, and in that one found in rain- 
water called Protococcus pluvialis, which has only one zoospore 
to the transparent sphere, the change from the still to the 
moving sphere has been observed; but in Yolvox Globator 
that has yet to be discovered. 
To those who, living in a good locality, have an opportunity 
of watching this beautiful “ rolling sphere ” and its surround- 
ings, what an opportunity there is for opening out this life- 
history, already well begun ; whereby, not only in this par- 
ticular plant increased knowledge will be matured, but a key 
given by every advance to unravel the mysteries of other 
forms of lower life, of the knowledge of which we possess so 
little. How frequently do we hear the complaint of younger 
observers, “ what is there left for me to work at ? ” And 
yet in this field alone there is opportunity for unlimited re- 
search, enough if honestly worked to bring scientific reputation 
to not only one, but numerous observers. The phenomena called 
by Braun the “ Rejuvenescence of Nature,” in the vegetable 
world, and the “Alternations of Generations,” by Steenstrup, 
in the animal kingdom (Bay Society's publications), point out 
facts which give to the modern inquirer an interest far beyond 
that which the older observer possessed, who confined himself 
merely to the description of each individual form he discovered, 
without tracing its relationship beyond. And they show, further 
that we must consider the individualities of a plant not so much 
by its more prominent features, as by the series of changes 
through which it passes, — each one as important as the other, 
each change a link in the chain, — so that when wes peak of 
Yolvox Globator, we must conceive of it, not so much as a 
rolling crystal studded with emerald spots, but as a circle ot 
changes of which that is one ; certainly the most prominent, 
and beautiful aesthetically considered, but physiologically not 
of more import than the rest. 
