GENUS PODOPHR YA. 813 



Neither in the text, nor in any of the numerous illustrations given by that authority, 

 from which our figure is borrowed, are the suckers shown to assume the extended 

 state with capitate extremities that characterize the typical Acineta, and under these 

 circumstances, it seems doubtful whether it should not be more accurately referred 

 to the family of the Ephelotidae. The Trichophrya Ophrydii of Claparede and 

 Lachmann, the equivalent of Stein's Acinete phase of Ophrydium versatile, would 

 seem to differ in no important respect from this species. 



GENUS V. PODOPHRYA, Ehr. 



Animalcules solitary, illoricate, globose, ovate, or elongate, attached 

 posteriorly to foreign objects by a more or less extensively developed rigid 

 pedicle ; tentacles suctorial, usually distinctly capitate, united in fascicles 

 or distributed irregularly over the surface of the periphery. 



HAB. Salt and fresh water. 



The identification of the numerous species belonging to the genus Podophrya 

 may be greatly facilitated by dividing the entire series into two sections distinguished 

 respectively by the irregular or fasciculate disposition of their tentacles. 



A. TENTACLES IRREGULARLY DISTRIBUTED. 

 Podophrya fixa, Mull. sp. PL. XLVI. FIGS. 24-30. 



Body spherical, attached to a slender and more usually sinuous pedicle, 

 the distal extremity of which is abruptly expanded, and whose length 

 rarely exceeds the diameter of the body ; tentacles numerous, slender, 

 distinctly capitate, not exceeding the body in length, distributed throughout 

 the surface of the periphery ; contractile vesicle single or double ; endoplast 

 elongate-ovate, subcentral. Length of body 1-400". HAB. Fresh water. 



This animalcule, identical with the Trichoda fixa of O. F. Miiller, was originally 

 regarded by Stein as both synonymous with Actinophrys sol, and as a transitional 

 Acinete condition of Vorticella microstoma. From Dujardin, who also relegated it 

 to the Radiolarian class, it received the title of Actinophrys pedicellata. In its 

 resting or encysted condition, PL XLVI. Fig. 28, the external cuticular layer, 

 becoming indurated, assumes a pyriform outline, ornamented by three or four pro- 

 minent transversely annular crests or ridges, the interspaces between which are, to a 

 greater or less extent, longitudinally striate. The presence of such cysts has been 

 detected by Engelmann among other food-matter within the parenchyma of Stylo- 

 nychia my'tilus, a circumstance which suggests the possibility of Spharophrya 

 stylonychii being the embryonic condition only of the present type, developed 

 through the breaking up into spore-like bodies of the encysted Podophrya. 



Podophrya ferrum-equinum, Ehr. sp. PL. XLVI. FIGS. 19-22. 



Body flattened, reniform, having a raised nipple-like protuberance in the 

 centre of the anterior surface ; tentacles irregularly distributed along the 

 anterior border ; pedicle very short, thick, and turgid, longitudinally striate, 

 its diameter nearly equal to that of the body of the animalcule ; contractile 

 vesicles numerous, forming a continuous row along the margin of the frontal 

 border; endoplast horseshoe-shaped. Greatest diameter of body 1-120". 



HAB. Fresh water, on Hydrophilns piceus. 



