8l2 ORDER TENTACULIFERA-SUCTORIA. 



transferred to a friend's aquarium, and where it had not improbably developed inde- 

 pendently. Of yet weightier import, however, are the facts that while Trichophrya has 

 normally half-a-dozen or more distinct fascicles of tentacula, Podophrya qitadripartita, 

 its supposed mature form, has only four, and while the endoplast or nucleus in the 

 last-named type is simply ovate, in Trichophrya, as demonstrated by Claparede and 

 Lachmann, it is exceedingly attenuate or band-like. Mr. Badcock further testifies, 

 this being a new and important observation, that the tentacles of the Trichophrya in 

 their contracted state exhibit an apparent spiral plication, which is evidently due, 

 as shown by his drawings, to the existence of a delicate externally developed spiral 

 filament as observed by the author in Podophrya eloiigata and other species described 

 in this volume. No such histologic differentiation of the substance of the tentacles 

 is referred to in the case of Podophrya quadripartita, and that such does not exist 

 in this species the author is enabled to affirm through having received from Mr. 

 Badcock specimens for identification of the very examples he described, and sub- 

 jected them to a searching examination in both the living and preserved condition. 

 This circumstance of the essentially distinct histologic compos. tion of their tenta- 

 cular appendages would of itself suffice to indicate the specific independence of these 

 two forms. It has yet to be stated, that Mr. Badcock himself records observing 

 the development of the adult PodopJiryce from ciliated embryos that were present in 

 the water, and which, as has been already observed by Biitschli and other investi- 

 gators, are produced by a process of internal gemmation from the parent. In the 

 series of examples examined by the author it was further found that the smallest 

 and youngest specimens possessed but one or two tentacular fascicles, four such 

 fascicles being the full complement only of the adult zooid. The intercalation of a 

 TrichophryaASke or multi-fasciculate phase as an embryonic state cannot therefore 

 be logically maintained. It is worthy of remark in this connection, that a variety of 

 species of Acinetid^ frequently occur in company, a fact which is well calculated to 

 mislead the amateur investigator as to their true import and affinities. As an 

 illustration of this fact it may be mentioned that the author has recently received 

 from Dundee fragments of weeds upon which are thus associated the three very 

 distinct types Podophrya elongafa, P. mollis, and Acineta viystaciua, and in a similar 

 manner, through Mr. Thos. Bolton of Birmingham, examples of Acineta grandis, A. 

 himiarum, A. viystacina, var. longipes, and Pejidrosoma radians, growing oi\ the same 

 or neighbouring branchlets of the weed Nitella. Mr. Badcock, finally, in his laudable 

 attempt to establish the identity between Trichophrya epistylidis and Podophrya 

 quadripartita, figures as substantial evidence in the proof of his assumption * what 

 is an undoubted example of the loricate bifasciculate type Acineta leninariini. 

 Trichophrya epistylidis, upon the weight of evidence submitted in these pages, is 

 hence unhesitatingly retained as a well-marked independent species. Among the 

 examples of this type examined by Messrs. Claparede and Lachmann an internally 

 developed ciliated embryo was on one occasion observed. 



Trichophrya digitata, Stein sp. Pl. XLVI. Figs, io and it. 



Body ovate, discoidal, adherent throughout the whole, or the central 

 portion only, of the under surface ; tentacles thick and digitiform, not 

 distinctly capitate, scattered irregularly over the entire free surface ; 

 contractile vesicle single ; endoplast band-like, sinuous. Length 1-360". 



Hab. — Fresh water, on Entomostraca. 



This species, originally described by Stein as the "gefingerte Acinete," was 

 believed by that authority to represent the embryonic or Acinete condition of some 

 higher ciliate Infusorium ; later on, however, it received from him the name of 

 Acineta digitata, and is referred to the present genus by Claparede and Lachmann. 



' Jouin. Roy. Mic. Soc.,' Aug. iSSo, pl. xiv. fig. 6. 



