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Show 40 DROSERA ROTUNDIFOLIA. CHAP. III. The little masses of aggregated. matter are of the most dI. versi' fi ed shapes ' often . sph. encal or o· val, hso. mde - ti.m es roue h e1 o n gated' or quite uregul. ar .W Ith t rea - or nee] { l ac e- li.ke or club-forme.d . proJ eCtions. . They consist of thick, apparently VISCid ~atter, which In the exterior tentacles is of a pu:phsh, and. i~l the short discal tentacles of a greenis_h, colour. Ihes.e little masses incessantly change their forms a~d posi- ti.o ns, b ei· ng never at rest. A sine:le mass will often v • Th · separat e I· nto two ' which afterwards reunite. 1 euf n1ovements are rather slow, and resemble t 1ose o Amoebre or of the white corpuscles of the blood. We A B C D 1!: F G 1I FIG. 7. (Drosera rotund1'jolia.) . h cell of a tentacle, showin g the various fonns successively Diagram oft ~:~~ed by the aggregated masses of protoplasm. may, therefore, conclude that they consist o.f protoplasm. If their shapes are sketched at Intervals of a few minutes, they are invariably se n to have undergone great changes of form ; and .the same cell has been observed for several hours. Eight rude, though accurate sketches of the same cell, rna l~ at intervals of between 2 m. or 3 m., are here given (:fig. 7), and illustrate some of the simpler and conlmonest changes. The cell A, when :first sketched, included two oval masses of purple protoplasm touching each other. These became separate, as shown at B, and then reunited, as at C. After the next interval a very common appearance was presented- CHAP. III. THE PROCESS OF AGGREGATION. 41 D, namely, the formation of an extremely minute sphere at one end of an elongated mass. This rapidly increased in size, as shown in E, and was then reabsorbed, as at F, by which time another sphere had been formed at the opposite end. The cell above :figured was from a tentacle of a dark red leaf, which had caught a small moth, and was examined under water. As I at first thought that the movements of the masses might be due to the absorption of water, I placed a fly on a leaf, and when after 18 hrs. all the tentacles were well inflected, these were examined without being immersed in water. The cell FIG. 8. ( Drosera rotundifolia.) Diagram of the same cell of a tentacle, showing the various forms successively assumed by the aggregated masses of protoplasm. here represented (fig. 8) was from this leaf, being sketched eight times in the course of 15 m. These sketches exhibit some of the more remarkable changes which the protoplasm undergoes. At first, there was at the base of the cell 1, a little mass on a short footstalk, and a larger mass near the upper end, and these seemed quite separate. Nevertheless, they may have been connected by a fine and invisible thread of protoplasm, for on two other occasions, whilst one mass was rapidly increasing, and another in the same cell rapidly decreasing, I was able by varying the light and using a high power, to detect a c~nnecting thread of extreme tenuity, which evidently served as |