376 
NOTES AND MEMORANDA. 
^ of Spencer (used with glycerine for very oblicpie, and with water 
for axial illumination) “ were manifestly superior, not only showing 
the markings of Ampliipleura pelhicida blacker and finer, but standing 
better the test of deepest eye-pieces without flinching.” 
Jdoirydium gramdatum. — The Botrydium granulatiim, which inhabits 
the clayey mud on the borders of ponds, is composed of an aerial 
part, globular, green, and the size of a pin’s head, and of a subterra- 
nean rhizoid j^art, which is only an attenuated juxdongation, ramified 
by dichotomy of the globular aerial cell. Tliis latter alone contains 
chlorophyll. Transferred to a drop of water, it gives birth to 
numerous asexual zoospores, furnished at their extremity with a 
single vibratile cilium, and capable of immediate germination. 
But, on the contrary, when the atmosphere is dry, this sporangium 
shrivels up and empties itself ; its protoplasm passes into the root-like 
apparatus, where it collects into little masses, each of which is sur- 
rounded by a membrane, and it is then in these cells of accidental 
formation (subterranean zoos 2 )orangia) that the zoospores are formed. 
In other cases, there appears on a 2 >oint of the root-like system a 
vesicle which rises above the surface of the ground, and which is 
capable of living all the year, and even of undergoing a period of 
desiccation, before j)roducing these zoos]^ores. This vesicle (hyj^no- 
sj)orangium) is rounded ; it is this to which has been given the name 
of Botrydium WaUrothii. 
Under other influences, and chiefly under that of direct exjDosure 
to the sun, the contents of the aerial organ of Botrydium may break 
uj) into a certain number of cells, furnished with membranes,* whose 
colour, green at first, may be transformed later on into a fine red. 
These cells, when liberated, give birth to numerous biciliated zoo- 
spores ; these last can reproduce the individual only after a coi)ulation 
similar to that which M, Pringsheim has described in the Pandorina 
Morum, and after being fused in pairs into isospores.f 
The Life-History of Filaria Bancrofti. — Dr. T. Spencer Cobbold, 
F.E.S., devotes a 2 >aper to tliis organism, which he terms “ one of the 
most remarkable jiarasites that has ever engaged the attention of 
helminthologists.” The jiaper firsts shows the stejis by which we 
have acquired our 2 ‘>i’esent knowledge, through the discoveries of 
Wucherer, Lewis, Bancroft, Manson, Sonsino, the author, and others. 
Wliat that knowledge actually expresses when summarized in the 
lowest possible number of convenient terms is stated in the following 
six “ jiropositions ” : — 
1. Filaria Bancrofti is the sexually mature state of certain micro- 
scopic worms hitherto obtained either directly or indirectly from human 
blood. 
2. The minute hacmatozoa in question, hitherto described as 
Wucherer’s Filarice, Filaria sanguinis hominis, Trichina cystica, Filaria 
* These are the cells which have been described under the name of Protococcus 
coccoma, P. palustris^ P. hotrijdiokles. 
t Review of MM. Rostafinsky and Woronin’s j)aper f published in Leipzig), 
‘ Bull, de la 8oc. Bolanique de France,’ vol. xxv. p. 14. 
