286 FRESH-WATER RHIZOPODS OF NORTH AMERICA. 



Fig. 12, pi. XLVII, and figs. 7-9, pi. XLVIII, represent four views of an 

 individual, exhibiting the chief successive forms assumed in the course of an 

 hour. The specimen was obtained, with others of the same character, in wet 

 sphagnum, from the cedar swamp of Absecom, collected in August, 1876. 



Organisms exactly of a like character to those above described I also 

 obtained in sphagnum collected on Broad Mountain, Schuylkill County, 

 Pennsylvania, in September, 1S7G. Figs. 10-14, pi. XLVIII, and fig. 11, 

 pi. XLVII, represent six successive changes of an individual of the kind, 

 as observed during one hour and twenty minutes. 



None of the specimens above described or indicated contained any 

 trace of a nucleus, and my impression of Biomyxa, as derived from the 

 observation of these, was that it would form a member of the order of 

 Monera, notwithstanding its possession of contractile vesicles, which are 

 also considered as being absent in the latter. 



In April, 1877, in material from a sphagnous swamp near Kirkwood 

 station on the Camden and Atlantic railway, I found an organism agreeing 

 with the former in all respects, except that it contained a distinct nucleus. 

 This was globular and distinctly and uniformly granular. An individual 

 of the kind, exhibiting three successive changes of form, is represented in 

 figs. 18-20, pi. XLVIII. 



With the nucleated specimens, others were detected without nuclei, 

 mostly smaller, and looking as if they might be fragments of the former. 

 Three successive views of an individual of this character are represented in 

 figs. 15-17. 



Nearly at the same date with the last observations, and under circum- 

 stances almost exactly similar to those in which I originally discovered 

 Biomyxa vagans, I found an organism which I have supposed to be the 

 nucleated form or condition of the latter. It was detected in a clear jelly, 

 among numerous minute desmids, some of which were crescentoid and 

 others straight and fusiform. The creature, of which a number of examples 

 were noticed, appeared in general of a more compact or less translucent 

 character than Biomyxa as commonly seen, and though of very changeable 

 form appeared less disposed to produce those extreme changes observed in 

 the hitter. Fig. 21, pi. XLVIII, represents an individual of the kind, and 

 figs 22-25 represent four successive changes of form of a second indi- 

 vidual. The body was composed of colorless granular protoplasm, with 



