80 Church . — The Polymorphy of 
oospheres came to rest, the pointed end grew out to form 
a rhizoid, the body of the spore giving a brown filament 
of a few cells. A number of female plants, kept in a vessel 
of sea-water, continued to give off oospheres for several 
successive days, which in all cases germinated perfectly 
without the admission of antherozoids. Thus, although 
Thuret was fully satisfied as to the necessity of antherozoids 
for the fertilization of the oospheres of Fucus , he concluded 
that no act of fertilization took place in the Cutleria spores 
he had under observation. It is also of special interest 
to note that he found antheridial specimens to be extremely 
rare at Saint Vaast-la-Hogue, where these researches were con- 
ducted ; he states that he often collected from the oyster-beds 
there, where Cutleria grew in profusion, over a hundred 
female specimens before finding one male ; and he points 
out that this rarity of antheridial specimens not only agrees 
with what Harvey had stated to be the case in English 
waters, but would to a certain extent militate against the 
view that antherozoids possessed sexual functions of such 
importance to the plant. 
In the summer of 1855, the brothers Crouan 1 repeated 
these observations at Brest, and came to identical conclusions 
with regard to the perfect parthenogenesis of the oospheres. 
At the same time, they noted a peculiar phenomenon in 
connexion with the fate of the antherozoids. These at first 
rose to the surface of the water, forming an orange film 
on the side nearest the light, in the manner typical for all 
swarming cells of the Brown Seaweeds ; but on coming to 
rest, they became agglutinated by their gelatinous membranes 
into a pseudo-tissue mass of a brown colour, which was even 
capable of being sectioned. They therefore concluded that 
the antherozoids were non-sexual, but still possessed a certain 
degree of germinative capacity. It is so far clear that to 
the older observers who worked on the French shores of 
the Channel, the constancy of the germination of the oospheres 
Bull. Soc. Bot. France, ii. p. 644. 
