119 



tlic axile substance in the pseudopodia. He, lio-wever, 

 enters into an extended argument to show that this may be 

 truly the case, too long to epitomise here, but very interest- 

 ing and instructive. 



A further point shown by Greef is, that the walls of the 

 " cysts" show a decided resistance to reagents, and are 

 seen to be superficially covered by very minute spiuelets, 

 giving a somewhat pilose appearance to the surface. I do 

 not think the cysts seen in Irish examples have shown this 

 characteristic. Greef argues that both perforate globe and 

 stipes are doubtless (?) siliceous, for they likewise withstand 

 the action of concentrated sulphuric acid. 



Touching the svstematic position of this interesting rhizo- 

 pod, Greef, as did Cienkowski and myself, of course suggests 

 its relationship to tbe Ethmosphserida, and that close to the 

 marine Heliosphaera, justly remarking that if such a perforate 

 " skeleton" were met with, as that possessed by this form, 

 in the sea or fossil, no one would hesitate to place it amongst 

 Folycystina j^roper. But then we know the living animal, 

 and it has no " central capsule," unless, indeed, the question- 

 able " nuclear" body be its representative, nor Tless signifi- 

 cant or important indeeri) has it " yellow cells.'' Greef, 

 indeed, suggests besides that this central body (I think not at 

 all always present, or at least perceptible) may be, perhaps, 

 rather the representative of the not always present, so de- 

 nominated " inner vesicle" (" Binnenblase") of the typical 

 marine Eadiolaria. The stipes, too, is seemingly unique, and 

 I had imagined the genus would have been better named in 

 allusion to that character than to the fenestrate shell, a cha- 

 racter pervading so very many of its marine relatives. The 

 absence of the " central capsule" has indeed a possible paral- 

 lel in one marine form. Coscinospheera ciliosa (A. Stuart),^ 

 possible only, indeed, because even the form referred to may 

 yet, according to Stuart himself, be seen actually to have a 

 central capsule. 



Greef finally makes some suggestions as regards the 

 seeming inclination to formation of colonies presented by 

 Clathrulina, if indeed the fact of the individuals sometimes 

 mutually standing off from one another and attached to each 

 other by the bases of the stipes, as they might be to foreign 

 objects, deserves to be so called, and he builds a hypothesis 

 on that circumstance. But 1 imagine there is in this fact no 

 analog)^ to such an organism as Carchesium. I venture to 

 think the younger examples orginating from the germs 



1 ' Zeitschrift fiir wissensch. Zoologie,' Bd. xxvi, p. 328, t. xviii. 



