132 FRESH-WATER RHIZOPODS OF NORTH AMERICA. 



attached by divergent threads to the summit and sides of the shell; pseu- 

 dopods colorless, digitate, up to half a dozen in number. 



Size. — From 0.1 OS mm. to 0.14 mm. long, 0.068 mm. to 0.084 mm. 

 broad, 0.032 mm. to 0.04 mm. thick; and the mouth end from 0.032 mm. to 

 0.04 mm. broad and 0.008 mm. in the opposite diameter. 



Locality. — Abundant in the moist sphagnum of sphagnous swamps 

 of Pennsylvania and New Jersey. Tobyhanna, Pokono Mountain, Monroe 

 County; Broad Mountain, Schuylkill County, Swarthmore, Delaware 

 County, Pennyslvania ; Absecom, Atlantic County, Longacoming x Ham- 

 monton, Atco, Malaga, Vineland, etc., New Jersey. 



Hyalosphenia papilio is common and at times exceedingly abundant 

 in moist bog-moss or sphagnum, in sphagnous swamps, but is not found in 

 ponds except accidentally. No other lobose rhizopod has more impressed 

 me with its beauty than this one. From its delicacy and transparency, 

 its bright colors and form, as it moves among the leaves of sphagnum, 

 desmids, and diatoms, I have associated it with the idea of a butterfly 

 hovering among flowers. From its comparative abundance, the readiness 

 and certainty with which it may be obtained and preserved, and from its 

 transparency, which allows its structure to be well seen, it is peculiarly 

 well adapted for the study of the life-history of its order. I have collected 

 it from early spring to late autumn, and have retained it alive in sphagnum, 

 in a glass case, through the winter. During the Christmas holidays, I have 

 repeatedly exhibited it, in the living condition, to the admiration of friends* 



* This interesting Rhizopod, found together with a profusion of other remarkable microscopic 

 forms of both animal and vegetal life, of which many are novel and yet undescribed, recalls pleasing 

 recollections of excursions into the sphagnous bogs, cedar swamps, and pine barrens in the southern 

 region of New Jersey. These localities have special charms for the botanical student on account of the 

 diversity of beautiful and interesting plants they produce. In proper season, in most places, they are 

 redolent with the rich perfume of the Magnolia glaum and the fragrance of the Clethra alnifolla. In 

 early spring, the ground is adorned with bright patches of the little Pyxie, Pyxidanthera barbulata, and 

 Sand-Myrtle, Leiophyllum buxifolium. Later, the swamps display an abundance of Helonias bullata, and 

 still later, many other liliaceous plants, as Zygadenus limanthoides, Narthecium americanum, besides more 

 common ones. Rich are the woods and swamps in Orchids of the genera Cypripcdium, Goodycra, 

 Spiranth.es, Liparis, Ilabenaria, Calopogon, Pogonia, and Arethusa. On dry hanks, amidst a host of 

 Vacciuiums and other ericaceous plants, are conspicuously seen the spikes of white flowers of the 

 grassy-looking Xerophyllum asphodeloides ; while the bogs below are as conspicuously dotted with the 

 curious green and purple Pitcher-plant, Sarracenia purpurea, nestling among sphagnum, and entangled 

 among Cranberry and Sundews, Drosera filiformis, otc. In many places occurs the singular grass, with 

 its underground fruit, the Amphicarpum Purshii ; and in more restricted localities appears the rare little 

 fem, the Schizaa pusilla. 



Upward of thirty years ago, while examining the structure of sphagnum, my attention was 

 distracted by the movements of a singular animal, whose character and affinities I did not then recog- 

 nize. September 9tJi, 1873, the fiftieth anniversary of my birth, a friend, Clarence S. Bement, presented 



