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A UTHORS INVESTIGA TIONS. 13 7or less confluent, and thus forming collections of considerable extent. Alarge number of these spores were likewise to be seen, detached fromtheir original adhesions, freely floating in the water, or collected in masses,upon the peripheries of the small air-bubbles that had here and therebecome entangled between the slide and the covering glass. In this latterinstance the spores exhibited a thicker and more opaque bounding wall,and manifested, as in the case of lycopodium powder, the power of resistingfor some time the hydrostatic or wetting action of the water this ; propertyhad already been suspected by Professor Tyndall to be possessed bythese minute bodies, but had not previously been practically demonstrated.The hay within from four to six hours after maceration revealed, onexamination of a small fragment, a considerable alteration in the characterand comportment of the associated spores. Hitherto these had displayedno signs of motion, a uniform stillness reigning throughout the entireexpanse of the microscopic field. Now, however, among the numbers thathad become detached from their original adhesion to the vegetable matter,the majority exhibited an active vibratory motion that at first sight wasscarcely to be distinguished from the characteristic " Brownian movements."The size of these motile spores corresponded with that of the quiescentones, not exceeding the i-2O,oooth of an inch in diameter, and withoutrecourse to the highest magnifying power and the most careful adjustmentof the illumination, it was not found possible to ascertain by whatmeans their locomotion was accomplished. Examined successively withthe -tV, 7>V> and 7V inch objectives of Messrs. Powell and Lealand, it wasat length satisfactorily determined that each individual spore or body wasfurnished with a single, long, slender, whip-like organ or flagellum, whoseactive vibrations propelled the spherical body through the water. Theseminute motile corpuscles exhibited, in fact, at this early stage of theirdevelopment a type of organization in all ways comparable with that of thesimply uniflagellate genusA Monas.highly characteristic feature of these moving spores remains to bementioned. Although vast numbers of them were to be seen careeringsingly through the water, a very considerable proportion were united toeach other in irregular clusters consisting of from two or three to as manyas a dozen, or, as still more generally occurred, from two to as many aseight of them were joined laterally, so as to form floatingmoniliform ornecklace-like aggregations corresponding in general aspect and mode ofattachment with the normal moniliform colonies of the collared flagellatetype Desmarella moniliformis, hereafter figured and described. If watchedfor a sufficient time, these clustered and serial aggregations were observedto become disintegrated, each separate corpuscle thenceforward maintainingan independent existence. In consequence of the characteristic aggregateforms primarily exhibited by this special species, it has been furtherfound possible to definitely identifyit with one of the types of animalculesdescribed by O. F. Mliller in the year 1786, and upon which he