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In 1871 a very remarkable contribution to our knowledge of the Radiolarians was published by Cienkowski, who strongly expressed the opinion that these yellow cells were parasitic algae, pointing out that our only evidence of their Radiolarian nature was furnished by their constant occurrence in most members of the group.
The last of this long series of researches is that of Hamann , who investigates the similar structures which occur in the oral region of the Rhizostome jelly-fishes. While agreeing with Cienkowski as to the parasitic nature of the yellow cells of Radiolarians, he holds strongly that those of anemones and jelly-fishes are unicellular glands.
The next important work was that of Richard Hertwig, who inclined to think that these cells sometimes developed from the protoplasm of the Radiolarian, and failing to verify the observations of Cienkowski, maintained the opinion of Haeckel that the yellow cells "fur den Stoffwechsel der Radiolarien von Bedeutung sind."
In the hope of clearing up these contradictions, I returned to Naples in October last, and first convinced myself of the accuracy of the observation of Cienkowski and Brandt as to the survival of the yellow cells in the bodies of dead Radiolarians, and their assumption of the encysted and the amoeboid states. Their mode of division, too, is thoroughly algoid.
Brandt, of Berlin, although failing to confirm Haeckel's observations as to the presence of starch, has completely corroborated the main discovery of Cienkowski, since he finds the yellow cells to survive for no less than two months after the death of the Radiolarian, and even to continue to live in the gelatinous investment from which the protoplasm had long departed in the form of swarm-spores.
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