of the Freshwater Sponges in the Tanks of Bombay. 309 
served creeping about, singly or in pairs, with a number of glo- 
bular bodies within them, varying in diameter from the 1-2 150th 
to the l-1075th of an inch ; similar bodies also may be seen here 
and there, singly or associated together, fixed to the watch-glass 
by a plastic granulo-gelatinous matter, and bound down by fila- 
mentous threads (such as I have before mentioned) parting from 
them in different directions. After some days, from being nearly 
transparent in the first instance, the granular matter with which 
they are filled becomes more defined and evident, and as they 
enlarge, their circumference presents a cortical investment like 
that of the seed-like bodies ; their colour also becomes brovmish, 
and their circumference, from being at first smooth and defined, 
rough and irregular ; they appear to be motionless in themselves, 
however much the matter contained within them may assume 
different shapes, and that peculiarity connected with their size 
and general appearance is quite sufficient to distinguish them 
from the granules of the matter in which they are imbedded. 
In the different stages of development I have mentioned, these 
bodies may be viewed, both within and without the more ma- 
tured Protean, but, as I have not yet seen them deposited or 
fixed to the watch-glass by the animal itself, I am unable con- 
fidently to state that they contain its proper ova ; should they 
prove to do so hereafter, the assumption that the animal itself 
ultimately passes into the form of a seed-like body may not be 
worth much. 
The development of the ovum appears to take place in the fol- 
lowing way: — When first liberated from the spherical cells of the 
seed-like bodies, it consists of an ovoid or globular sac of green- 
ish homogeneous matter, surmounted by a red spot, and inclosed 
within a transparent envelope ; the former then changes in shape, 
becomes granular, and its granules obtain a certain latitude of 
motion ; thus transformed, it occupies and projects above the 
upper part of its transparent envelope, which in its turn enlarges 
and becomes spherical. Should the ovum in the commencement 
not have been firmly bound down by the filamentous structure 
to which I have alluded, the granulo-plastic matter, and the 
agglomeration of the minute vibrating bodies which accumulate 
around it, and which appear to be actively engaged in this part 
of the process, it may become vagrant ; but if otherwise, it has 
probably become fixed for the whole period of its existence ; un- 
less, as I have observed in some gemmules when kept in distilled 
water, that the whole community appear to find it necessary to 
separate and forsake their spicular structure to go in search of 
food. 
The form of the young Proteans from the granular matter 
taken from the seed-like bodies of Nos. 2 and 4 resembles P. 
