CANNIBALISM IN AMOEBA 699 



media might be expected to iiiduce them to exhibit abnormal 

 behaviour in this and in other respects. 



It is much more probable that Walhch (29) also saw some- 

 thing similar to the observations recorded in this paper, since 

 he figures a small amoeba which he calls a " gemmule ' and 

 believed he had proved the occurrence of ' gemmation ' and 

 ' viviparous reproduction ' in Amoeba v i 1 1 o s a , His 

 ' viviparous reproduction " seems to rest upon the occurrence 

 of many small amoebae in his cultures, such as also occurred 

 in my own, and it is probable that his ' gemmule ' was either 

 an amoeba which had become rounded off or one which had been 

 recently extruded, after having been ingested. He also 

 describes structures which he calls ' nucleated corpuscles ' and 

 ' sarcoblasts ', and he says that the ' sarcoblasts ' are obviously 

 reproductive, because, although he never saw them develop 

 into amoebae while they were yet within an ' amoeba cyst ' 

 (a structure which is obviously not a cyst, but a dying amoeba), 

 yet he saw bodies present in the same fluid at the same time, 

 outside and identical in appearance, which did develop into 

 amoebae ! Since he made no permanent preparations, it is not 

 possible to know what he really was dealing with, but it is 

 unlikely that either the ' sarcoblasts ' or the ' nucleated cor- 

 puscles ' were in anj^ way similar to my spheres. Wallich, 

 however, further describes what he refers to as ' a process 

 resembling gemmation or viviparous reproduction '. His 

 figure of a ' gemmule ' is very like the recently extruded sphere 

 of my cultures, but since Wallich says that he never saw his 

 ' gemmule ' emerge, and further that he is ' unable to vouch 

 for ' the process of gemmation ' on his own authority ', it is 

 not possible to attach much importance to his observations. 



While there are, therefore, several references to the occur- 

 rence of endogenous budding in the Amoebaea, there seems 

 to be no single record of it which is free from doubt and cer- 

 tainly no record which has been confirmed by subsequent 

 workers. This is a curious fact, when we remember that 

 endogenous budding does occur in forms so closely alHed to 

 the Amoebaea as iVrcella and other Thecamoebida. It even 



