MICROSCOPIC ORGANISMS IN INTESTINAL CANAL, 275 
appear to resemble very closely, if not to be identical with those 
described by Cienkowski under the name of Diplophrys ster- 
corea, as forming sporangioid aggregations on specimens of 
moist horse dung.! According to him, however, the sporangia 
were devoid of any investing membrane or matrix, both of 
which are unequivocally present in the present instance. The 
characters of the movements in the cells when in the active 
state is moreover different, and there does not seem to be any 
tendency to the formation of compound groups by adhesion of 
active cells as described by Cienkowski. Certainly, too, the 
cells here are unprovided with anything of the nature of a shell 
or differentiated external investing coat, which is regarded as 
probably present in Diplophrys. 
Taking the facts that they are so closely related to the 
ordinary Amcebe and spores of the media in which they occur; 
that they are included in many cases within the same sporangia 
with these bodies; that they appear to be developed in groups 
such as would naturally result from processes of division in 
Ameebeze, and that in the active state they present characters so 
similar to those of the zoospores and Ameebule developed from 
the spores of the common form of sporangia, I am inclined to 
regard these cells as merely a variety of reproductive bodies 
belonging to the same organism, and not as the representatives 
of a distinct species. 
—— —_—_—_—_——. 
I11.—Development of Excretal Parasites in Abnormal Media. 
While in the excreta of cows and horses we find media which 
permit of the continued vitality and further development of the 
parasitic organisms which they contain whilst still within the 
body, it must not be supposed that they are peculiar in doing 
so. The excreta form the normal site for the reproduction of 
continuous series of generations external to the body, but other 
animal fluids apparently may more or less replace them in this 
respect. With regard to one at all events—blood—there can 
be no doubt. In comparing the appearances presented by the 
biconcave spores of normal sporangia with those of blood-cor- 
puscles, it was accidentally ascertained that the spores in place 
of being destroyed by their transfer to the abnormal medium, 
appeared to find in it the conditions for further development. . A 
series of special cultivations in isolated wax-cells was therefore 
carried out with the following results. When a drop of normal 
blood suspended from a cover-glass is sealed in a wax-cell, 
1 “Ueber einige Rhizopoden und verwandte Organismen,” ‘ Archiv fiir 
mikrosk, Anat.,’ Bd, xii, S. 44. 
