Referee's report by Joseph Jackson Lister, on two papers 'Preliminary notes on a new method of reproduction in the case of the genus amoeba', and 'The relation of binary fission and conjugation to variation' by J Y Simpson

Description

Sectional committee: not stated

Both papers not recommended for publication. Discusses the fact that the paper looses sight of the fact that two parents were presumably involved. If they assume, as the author appears to do in the later parts of the paper, that only one parent was involved, it is possible that a mode of reproduction other than that of successive binary fission occurred in the author's specimens, but it is misleading to call it 'new' as the author brings no evidence to show that it differs from that described by Penard in 'Etudes sur les rhizopodes d'eau douce', 'Extrait de Mémoires de la société de physique et d'histoire naturelle de Genève', volume 31, page 95. Or from that indicated by Greef in Pelomyxa palustris, 'Archiv für Mikroskopische Anatomie', volume ten. The same evidence of 'looseness' and want of care is seen with the paper's figures, where a description of a figure five is given but no figure five is included. .

The same 'looseness' is evident in the second paper. There is good reason to believe that conjugation occurs in the life histories both of the Formanifera and Radiolaria. Thee scale the author uses for measurements does not allow for constructive comparison. The photographs of the pairs of Paramecium resulting from fission, which the reader is invited to compare, show nothing.

[Both papers not published].

Reference number

RR/15/256

Earliest possible date

23 May 1901

Physical description

Report on paper

Page extent

5 pages

Format

Manuscript