282 FRESH-WATER RHIZOPODS OF NORTH AMERICA. 



ing August, in the same locality, and in September, on Broad Mountain, 

 Schuylkill County, Pennsylvania. Subsequently I observed specimens 

 collected with sphagnum at Kirkwood station on the Camden and Atlantic 

 lailway. 



Biomyxa vagans, as represented in figs. 5-12, pi. XLVII, and pi. 

 XLVIII, is a colorless body of ever changing and most variable form, 

 consisting of a glairy, colorless, finely granular protoplasm. From a 

 usually more or less central mass or body it spreads itself into a sheet of 

 irregular form, giving off pseudopodal extensions, which branch and anas- 

 tomose with one another. 



Biomj^xa moves slowly, incessantly, and evenly, and never for a 

 moment remains the same. The body mass of protoplasm composing it 

 may spread more or less uniformly from the initial spheroidal form, or it 

 may spread unequally, or divide and extend in any direction. Frequently 

 it becomes narrowly extended at one or both poles, becoming more and 

 more elongated into a cord, which may expand into a band, or may divide 

 and extend into several divergent cords or bands. The whole or different 

 portions may expand and become very thin, even to such a degree as to 

 break into fissures and circular holes. 



The pseudopods appear as long, tapering extensions of the body proto- 

 plasm, often forking, and with the terminal branches as exceedingly delicate 

 filaments. Contiguous branches frequently anastomose and form nets, 

 which here and there, by expansion, assume the aspect of thin patches with 

 circular holes. The pseudopods are quickly produced, and as quickly 

 modified or withdrawn. 



A circulation of granules takes place along the course of the pseudo- 

 podal extensions of Biomyxa as in Gromia. It occurs both outwardly and 

 inwardly at the same time in the trunks and larger branches, but in one 

 direction only in the finest. In the flow, frequent fusiform accumulations 

 of protoplasm are produced along the pseudopodal extensions, and these 

 sometimes expand into patches or become secondary centres for the emana- 

 tion of pseudopodal filaments. 



In Biomyxa there is not the slightest distinction between endosarc and 

 ectosarc, the whole structure being a homogeneous, pale and finely granular 

 protoplasm, with variable proportions of minute oil molecules, with fewer, 



