114 JOURNAL OF THE [October, 



cases have been turned a light hue of pink through immersion in 

 balsam. 



Before quitting the rhizopods I would make one more reference 

 to an interesting feature that will have its application in summing 

 up the consequences of these notes. I quote certain paragraphs 

 in the article by Prof. Osborn, noticed above: " In its chemical 

 nature the covering of Hyalosphenia is interesting, being a\bu?nin- 

 oid and less unlike the chemical nature of compounds in the 

 protoplasm than are the skeletons of lime or silica found in 

 Ratalia (foraminifera) actinospherium and many other specialized 

 rhizopods. // is, therefore, a less specialized act of the secretory 

 power to produce a c hit i no us than a calcareous or silicious skeleton." 

 And again: " Liberkuhnia is a naked body of rather definite out- 

 line, with one end prolonged into pseudopodia. Thepseudopodia 

 are never strictly radial, but are branching, the branches leading 

 out into finer and finer divisions which often anastomose or join 

 together. The food is caught upon the network of pseudopodia and 

 digested there.'' Or, in other words, we may put this interpreta- 

 tion on the concluding sentence, that an infinitesimal thread of 

 protoplasm has a digestive, and as a consequence an assimilative, 

 power. Can we not then inquire whether the living and moving 

 protoplasmic layer of Amphiprora ornata has not an identical 

 power, and is it not performing this digestive and assimilative 

 function when it carries from point to point on its perimeter such 

 particles as a motionless rotifer or a bacterium ? 



From the preceding restricted reference to animal life depend- 

 ent on the Diatomacege, we are led to inquire whether an animal 

 protoplasm would not be better associated with the idea of the 

 sustenance of carnivorous animals, rather than that they should 

 seek the sustenance of a purely plant protoplasm to build up and 

 sustain their own changes of growth or waste. 



This problem of the true nature of the sarcode of the Diato- 

 macege is now respectfully submitted to those observers who care 

 to take the pains to strive for a solution through observation, until 

 no doubt shall remain as to what it is, whether absolutely plant 

 or absolutely animal in its nature. 



I would offer a few words explanatory of the contents of the 

 six slides exhibiting the diatoms from the edge of Mobile Bay 

 shore. They are prepared in duplicate, two of a kind, to show the 



