34 
Transactions of the Society. 
Colpidium, Colpoda, Paramecium, Cyclidium, Spirostomum . Bursaria, 
-Halteria, Stylonychia, Carchesium, and Epistylis — should have 
escaped the attention of observers in other places in India. It is 
possible that the ciliate forms met with by Carter in Bombay are 
different from those so common in the Pubjab ; but I am pretty 
confident that a more extended study than that which I have been 
able to attempt, of forms met with in other parts of India, will not only 
confirm the existence of the above-mentioned genera in other parts, 
but also enable the record to be still further extended. Altogether 
67 species of Ciliates have been so far recorded from India. They 
do not exhibit great variety of forms, as a rule, each genus being 
represented by one or two species only. Thus these 67 species 
belong to as many as 44 different genera, and almost all the 
important families have their representatives in India. 
Schewiakoff (26), after an elaborate study of the distribution of 
fresh- water Protozoa, showed that a very high percentage of the 
genera and species found in other countries are identical with 
those met with in Europe. The following remarks are worth 
quoting : — 
“ Of the 182 species (belonging to 91 different genera) observed 
in countries outside of Europe, 79 genera and 145 species have 
already been met with in Europe, so that the number of new extra- 
European forms — i.e. forms not yet found in Europe (12 genera 
and 37 species) — is relatively quite insignificant. The total num- 
ber of Ciliates as yet known to occur in Europe amounts to 105 
genera and 236 species. Comparison of these with the number of 
European forms observed outside Europe shows that over three- 
quarters (75*2 p.c.) of the European genera, and over three-fifths 
(61*4 p.c.) of the European species, have already been shown to 
occur outside Europe. This percentage, which is considerably 
greater than that attained in any other class of Protozoa, indicates 
— setting aside the circumstance that the fresh-water Ciliates have 
been studied outside Europe in greater detail than any other 
Protozoa — that a very large number of European ciliates enjoy an 
extended distribution. Furthermore, the conclusion may be drawn 
that the conception of a universal distribution remains valid even 
when applied to the most highly organized of the Protozoa.” 
After surveying the geographical distribution of the various 
Protozoan groups, he came to the following further conclusion : — 
“ All these conclusions lead to the final result that we are quite 
unjustified in speaking of a ‘ geographical distribution ’ of the 
fresh- water Protozoa, in the sense in which we apply the term to 
higher animals and plants ; but they must, on the contrary, have a 
distribution which is ubiquitous, or universal.” 
So far as the facts of geographical distribution are concerned my 
work only confirms the foregoing conclusions. Of the 41 species 
studied by me as many as 38 are such as have been described 
