104 



Measurements. — Diameter of inner globes ranging about 

 -g-i^-oth of an inch, the size of the compound chisters varying 

 according to the number of contained globes, sometimes so 

 large as to be seen by the unassisted eye, poised in the 

 water like specimens of Actinospheerium, but greenish, not 

 white. 



Localities. — Pools at Ballylusk, and one or two other situa- 

 tions near Carrig mountain, near Tiiniehely, county Wicklow, 

 and near Multyfarnham, county Westmeath, very sparingly at 

 Glengariff, county Cork; rare and local, and sometimes 

 seemingly confined to some very restricted area of the few 

 pools which have produced it, but in those same spots found, 

 by careful search, at various seasons. 



Affinities and Differences. — If this fine form possessed a cen- 

 tral capsule there would be, so far as I see, no necessity to form 

 a new genus for it, for in that case it would be simply a new 

 fresh-water species of Spherozoum (Meyen) Haeckel. There is 

 not seemingly any other fresh-water rhizopod for which it could 

 be mistaken. The presence of the spicula would alone quite 

 decidedly separate it from Heterophrys myriopoda. Greef, 

 indeed, in his paper already cited^ accuses me, by reason of 

 hasty observation and of faulty comparison with Carter's 

 description, of having misapprehended the true characters of 

 Acanthocystis turfacea, and suggests that I must, therefore, 

 have only applied a new name to that already-known form, 

 and he cites my brief reference to it at our Microscopical 

 Club meeting.2 But I may be here forgiven for venturing to 

 observe that if Greef had more closely looked over the 

 record of that meeting, he would have seen that as well as 

 Kaphidiophrys, I likewise exhibited at the same meeting, in 

 contradistinction, examples of Acanthocystis turfacea, then 

 for the first time identified and exhibited in Ireland. Fur- 

 ther, even in the cursory record there made of Raphidio- 

 phrySjitwas described as possessing "immersed and entangled 

 in the outer region, beyond all computation densely nume- 

 rous, very slender, elongate spicules, acute at both ends lying 

 in every possible direction''^ — thus showing characters which 

 could in no way, even most superficially examined, be mis- 

 taken for the radiant vertical sj)icules of Acanthocystis tur- 

 facea, discoid at one end and furcate at the other. But, after 

 all, in the eyes of some, our Raphidiophrys viridis may be, 

 perhaps, only specifically, not generically, distinct from the 

 recognised members of the genus Acanthocystis — both mu- 



1 L. c, p. 482. 



2 * Quart. Journal of Micr. Science,' vol. vii, 1867. 



