founded upon n partial, imperfect, and often inaccurate knowledge,
and therefore not admissible. I f any of the older
terms should be retained for the genus Vesiculifera, it should
be by right of priority, — Conferva, for this genus hitherto
has been made to embrace various species of Vesiculifera, as
well as certainly a heterogeneous mass of other productions ;
but it seems to me tha t this genus ought to be abolished
altogether, and that the term Conferva should be used in a
more extended sense, and applied generally to any species of
the confervoid Algæ, in the same manner as the word zoophyte
is noAV used. Kiitzing, in his “ Phycologia Generalis,”
confines the genus Conferva to certain species of Sphoeroplea,
and to the marine species of Confervoe, with simple filaments,
such as Conf oerea and its allies. Next to Conferva, Proliféra
and who observes that the Zoocarpea of Nees of Esenbeck, “ Nov. Act.
Nat. Cur.” an. 1813, p. 517., is the same genus. The same author
thinks that the greater part of the Proliferoe of Vaucher, also the OEdogonium
of Link, ought to constitute part of the genus Tiresias. Of
T irefas, Pory gives the following description: ‘Lilaments cylindrical,
the interior tube filled with green colouring matter, in which are developed
hyaline corpuscles which separate from the filaments. This
colouring matter ends hy becoming agglomerated in each cell into a
sphere or zoocarpe, of appearance similar to the gemmæ of the Con-
jugatoe, and inert np to the moment when rupturing the cell by its
developement, and, putting itself in contact with the surrounding fluid,
it commences to move itself in different directions, and finishes by swimming
freely about, leaving all broken and transparent as water the tube
Avhich produced it.’ The Conferva hipartita of Dillwyn is certainly a
species of Tiresias, in the vegetable condition of which the Cercaria
podura and viridis of Miiller are the Zoocarpes, which we have seen
after a certain period of liberty fix themselves by their divided extremities
upon the remains of vegetables, or even upon the filaments of other
Tiresias, and elongate themselves into a confervoid vegetable. This
state of elongation has been well seen and figured by Le Clerc, in his
excellent memoir on the Proliferoe of Vaucher, as well as by Dillwyn
upon his Conferva genuflexa. It is surprising that these skilful naturalists
had not detected the metamorphoses o i Enchalis into that which they
call Confervoe.”
Both Bory and M. Léon le Ulerc are in error in supposing that they
had witnessed the developement of the large oval or spherical bodies
formed by the concentration of the endochrome of two cells : what the
latter represents are undoubtedly the zoospores in different stages of
growth.
has the greatest claim to be retained: a name, however,
founded in error.
16. V E S IC U L IP E K A .
Char. Same as those of the family.
Derivation. From Vesícula, a vesicle, an d /era, to bear.
1. V e s ic u l i f e r a p r in c e p s Hass.
Char. Filaments o f the same diameter as those o f V. capil-
laris. CeUs about once and a h a lf as long as broad.
Sporangia circular, producing but a very slight inflation o f
the fructiferous cell.
Isogonium capillare Kiitz. Phyc. Gener. 255. V. princeps
Hassall, in Annals, vol. x. p. 388.
Hab. Cheshunt : A. H. H.
This species I described in the Annals of Natural History,
vol. X . p. 388., under the name of V. princeps; but not meeting
with it a second time, and fearing th a t it was not reaUy distinct,
I referred it to V. capillaris. I am now, however,
induced again to regard it as a distinct species, from the circumstance
of its being described as such by Kiitzing under
the name of Isogonium capillare, a subgeneric appellation, bestowed
upon it on account of the sporangia not producing any
considerable inflation of the fruit-hearing ceUs, — a circumstance
which scarcely caUed for such a distinction. The
figure given by Kiitzing accords closely with one made hy
myself of the species long ago, and which I regret I have not
here introduced. The non or slight inflation of the cells will
distinguish it from all other described species.
2. V e s ic u l i f e r a c a p il l a r i s Hass.
Plate L. Figs. 1, 2.
Filaments o f considerable diameter.Char. Cells varying in
length from nearly twice to almost fo u r times their diameter.
Sporangia large, circular, contained in distinct
inflations o f the cells o f an evidently ovate form.
o 2