SCIENTIFIC SUMMARY. 
423 
"between insects and flowering- plants. On the growing thallus, and especially 
on the youngest branches, Dr. Dodel-Port, constantly found an immense 
number of the well-known Bell-Animalcules ( Vorticelld), which were, as 
usual with them, in incessant motion. These little creatures were found to 
feed upon the antherozoids floating about in the water ; but, besides those 
which they manage to swallow, a considerable number are whirled about in 
the vortex caused by the cilia of the animalcule, which no doubt stops them 
in the course impressed upon them by larger submarine currents, and keeps 
them as it were hovering about the neighbourhood where their business lies. 
As the Vorticellce are constantly changing their position by the contraction 
and extension of their little footstalks, the whirls set up by them in the 
water must become very complex, and the best proof that the action of 
these little vortices upon the antherozoids is beneficial to the plant, is to be 
found in the fact that it was through their agency that the author was 
enabled to observe the attachment of the antherozoids to the trichogyne. 
The presence of the Vorticellce , in fact, imparts to the passive antherozoids a 
motion analogous to that with which the ciliated sperm-cells of other Algae 
are endowed. In the case of this Polysiphonia, the beneficial action of 
the whirls produced by the Vorticellce is supposed to be increased by the 
presence in the immediate vicinity of the trichogyne of the forked hair 
above-mentioned. This hair, it is believed, will divide the whirls, and thus 
produce subsidiary whirls, tending directly to bring the antherozoids into 
contact with the trichogyne. In his conclusion Dr. Dodel-Port has the fol- 
lowing remarks : — “ The total absence of active organs of locomotion in the 
antherozoids of Florideae, points to a common ancestor from which the diffe- 
rent branches of the Floridese have inherited the immobility of the anthero- 
zoids. During the differentiation of the red seaweeds, many forms have no 
doubt died out in consequence of fertilization not taking place through the pas- 
sivity of the male cells, while other forms have retired to localities which 
favour the process of fertilization by the active currents of the water, in spite of 
the immobility of the antherozoids. It is well known that we now find most 
of the existing species of Florideae on the coasts of the warmer seas, which 
are constantly washed by the waves, while the northern coasts, which are 
covered with crusts of ice during a great portion of the year, are very poor 
in red seaweeds. Future researches will have to show how far in many of 
these aquatic plants the differentiation of the genera took place in the direc- 
tion of an adaptation to the small marine animals which inhabit them, and 
favour their fertilization in the way 1 have pointed out.” 
CHEMISTRY. 
Nonvegium. — This name has been given by Dr. Tellef Dalill to a newly 
discovered metal occurring in the copper-nickel, and nickel glance of Oteroe, 
a small island near the town of Krageroe, Skjcergaarden, in Norway. The 
mineral is roasted, the product dissolved in acid, and precipitated by sul- 
phuretted hydrogen, and the well-washed precipitate, free from nickel, 
again roasted. The product thus obtained is the crude oxide of Norwegium. 
