SCIENTIFIC SUMMARY. 
351 
the accuracy of Kiihne’s assertion that the sloth contains nucleated blood 
corpuscles ; and the result of his observations has been the disproval of the 
German physiologist’s assertion. The specimen examined was placed at 
Professor Rolleston’s disposal by Mr. H. N. Moseley, of Exeter College, and 
was carefully examined under the microscope. Professor Rolleston states 
that the employment of a twelfth-of-an-inch 'object-glass by Messrs. 
Powell & Lealand has convinced Mr. Moseley and himself that, though a 
certain number of the dried blood-corpuscles of the sloth do contain one or 
more nuclei more or less roughly hewn, and irregularly and eccentrically 
placed, still the immense majority of them possess the non -nucleated 
character ordinarily assigned to the mammalian red blood-cell. The large 
size of the blood-cells of the two-toed sloth, the largest next to those of the 
elephant put on record amongst mammalian blood-cells by Mr. Gulliver, 
may, in more ways than one, have rendered an examination of them by a 
low power amenable to fallacy, and recourse to those of a higher power 
necessary. In the smaller corpuscles of the camel neither power enabled the 
observer to detect the presence of nuclei in the coloured blood-cells.” — 
Vide Quarterly Journal of Microscopical Science , April. 
Gregarine Parasites in JBorlasia. — A paper was read some time since before 
the Royal Microscopical Society of London by Dr. W. C. McIntosh on the 
above subject. The author describes the parasite in general terms, and gives 
a more minute account of certain ova which accompany the gregarinaform 
body and are often extruded from the posterior end of the Borlasia under 
pressure. These ova measured about jJ-^th of an inch in diameter, and each 
contained an embryo that, for some time after the extrusion of the egg, made 
very evident movements. They have two coats, an inner, faintly (concen- 
trically) striated under pressure, and an external, without markings. The 
contained embryo is finely granular, and has a large pale nucleus ; its various 
postures may be distinctly seen. When an ovum is ruptured between the 
glasses the contents spread abroad as a vast number of dancing granules. 
A new species of (Ecistes has been discovered and described by Mr. Henry 
Davis, who has made some curious experiments upon certain specimens. 
These experiments appear to demonstrate that in the species which he terms 
CE. intermedins the ciliated “chin” is employed in manufacturing tire tube 
which the animal inhabits. In proof of this belief Mr. Davis says that he has 
on several occasions noticed minute particles in suspension in the water drawn 
across and from the buccal aperture and directed by the cilia over the chin 
into a slight depression beneath it. The granules were not rotated nor 
formed into pellets, but they simply collected in a spot agreeing with the 
position of the pellet-cup in Melicerta. There was evidently a viscid 
excretion at the spot which held the extraneous matters loosely together in 
a clot; in about half a minute the rotifer would jerk down, leave the 
floccose deposit on the edge of its case, then rise immediately and repeat the 
process. On mixing a little carmine with the water, the process became 
very striking ; an irregular crimson edge to the tube was made under Mr. 
Davis’ observation, and, oil leaving a number of specimens of both species 
in a zoophyte trough, charged with carmine, for forty-eight hours, he found 
that a few had continued building, and made red tops of different sizes to 
their habitations ; nearly one fourth of the entire structure in two instances 
YOL. YI. — NO. XXIY. C C 
