GENUS CLATHRULINA— CLATHRULINA ELEGANS. 273 



CLATHRULINA ELEGANS. 



Plate XLIV. 



Clathrulina elegans. Cieukowski: Archiv inik. Anat. iii, 1867,310, Taf. xviii. — Archer: Quart. Jour. Mic. 

 Scviii, 1808,71, 189; ix, 1809, pi. xvii, fig. 5; x, 1870, 117; xi, 1871, 322; xii, 1872, 195; xvii, 

 1877, 08, pi, xxii, figs. 23-25.— Greeff: Archiv mik. Anat. v, 1869, 407, Taf. xxvi, Fig. 1-7.— 

 Hertwig anil Lesser: Ibidem, x, 1874, Suppl. 227, Taf. v, Fig. 4. — Leidy : Proc. Ac. Nat. Sc. 

 Phila, 1874, 145, 1G6. 



Podos2>hara Hwckeliana. Archer: Quart. Jour. Mic. Sc. viii, 1868, 67. 



Capsule colorless when young, but becoming yellow or brown with 

 the advance of age; openings more or less circular, or polygonal witli 

 rounded angles. The soft body occupying the capsule of variable propor- 

 tion in relation with the latter, and, approaching maturity, more or less con- 

 tracted from it, composed of a soft, colorless, granular protoplasm, with scat- 

 tered oil-like molecules, and numerous vacuoles, as usual in Actinophrys, 

 or nearby homogeneous, and with a central nucleus. Pseudopodal rays 

 straight, mostly simple, or somewhat furcate, long and numerous. Pedicle 

 of variable length, attached to objects by an expanded, somewhat lobate 

 disk. 



In the young condition, the capsule not obvious, and the pedicle of 

 greatly thicker proportion; the soft body with numerous vacuoles, as in 

 Actinophrys. 



Size. — Diameter of the latticed capsule 0.03 mm. to 0.044 mm.; length 

 of pedicle from 0.05 mm. to 0.26 mm.; thickness 0.002 mm. to 0.004 mm. 



Locality. — In ponds and ditches, attached to aquatic plants; also in 

 sphagnous swamps New Jersey and Pennsylvania. 



Clathrulina elegans, represented in the figures of pi. XLIV, is 



well worthy of its specific name, and is a comparatively recent discovery 

 of the Russian naturalist Cienkowski. It was first found by him on Nitella 

 and Vaucheria, in a pond at St. Petersburg, and was afterward again found 

 by him and others in Grermany, and by Mr. Archer in Ireland and Wales. 

 In general appearance it bears a likeness to Trichoda fixa, less characteristi- 

 cally described by Miiller in 1786.* 



I have repeatedly observed Clathrulina elegans, but mostty in detached 

 and often dead specimens, collected in materials from ponds, especially in 

 the sphagnous swamps of New Jersey. I have rarely been so fortunate as 



* Animalcula Infusoria, 217, Tab. xxxi, Fig. 11, 12. 

 18 RHIZ 



