ZOOLOGY AND BOTANY, MICROSCOPY, ETC. 
173 
or convex sides or faces of the coils, where a wedge-shaped mass of 
isotropic material seems to be interposed between the outer edges of the 
successive anisotropic discs. 
While we have in Vorticella unequally contracting discs fixed in a 
spiral order, Trypanosoma Balbianii exhibits a rapid reversal of the 
spiral in a dextral or a sinistral direction ; the contractile discs (not, 
however, yet observed), are supposed to have waves of contraction 
revolving in them. 
Suitable Object for Study of “Direct” Nuclear Division.* — Prof. 
H. Hoyer found the pulmonary sacs of two frogs full of a large number 
of specimens of Bhabdonema nigrovenosum which he preserved in strong 
alcohol ; several specimens were afterwards stained in an alcoholic 
solution of borax-carmine for 24 hours, then extracted in strong 
alcohol to which 1 per cent, hydrochloric acid had been added, for one 
hour; they were next placed in glacial acetic acid for a quarter of an 
hour, then in a mixture of equal parts of glacial acetic and creosote, 
and afterwards in pure creosote ; they were then teased and the par- 
ticles mounted in a concentrated solution of Canada balsam in creosote. 
The large, polygonal, very granular, but only feebly stained epithelial 
cells of the enteric canal were seen to show some very remarkable 
appearances. Most of them contained a single large, rounded, sharply 
limited, darkly granulated nucleus, •0014— *025 mm. in size, These 
nuclei were coloured intensely red, and each contained a very deeply 
stained, large, round nucleolus which was inclosed by an uncoloured, 
relatively broad, clear area ; this last is probably an artificial product 
due to preservation in alcohol. Various cells of different kinds were 
found among those just described, and some of these had three to four 
nuclei of various sizes. 
y. General. 
Biological Terminology.f —Prof. T. J. Parker accepts Mr. Harvey 
Gibson’s criticism of his term blastobium for asexual generations, and 
proposes to replace it by agamobium, which will correspond with 
gamobium, Prof. Parker’s already proposed term for sexual generations. 
Prof. Parker thinks that we must be thorough in our reforms and must 
give up the erroneous use by botanists of the term ovary ; he proposes to 
speak of it as the venter of the pistil. Just as Haeckel and others have 
suggested some useful terms for the more important embryonic stages of 
animals, so Prof. Parker suggests some for similar stages in plants. The 
stage in mosses and vascular plants next important after the oosperm- 
stage is that in which the embryo consists of a mass of cells nearly or 
quite undifferentiated ; to this the already formed name of polyplast may 
be applied. In vascular plants there is another stage of importance — 
that in which there is formation of a cotyledon and of the primary 
roots ; this it is proposed to call th ephyllula. 
Anabiosis.^ — Prof. W. Preyer has for the last twenty-five years inter- 
ested himself in anabiosis — the revival of lifeless organisms and parts 
of organisms, after a state which differs from apparent death in the total 
suspension of all the functions, and from death itself in the retention of 
* Anat. Anzeig., v. (1890) pp. 26-9. f Nature, xliii. (1890) pp. 141-2. 
X Biol. Central!)!., xi. (1891) pp. 1-5. 
