The Microscope. 



It is a few of the latter that I want just now to show the 

 reader. 



The infusorian which the writer has elsewhere named Lox- 

 odes vorax, has an elongated ilattened body, with the anterior 

 and posterior borders evenly rounded, as in Fig. 1, the former 

 part curving somewhat toward the left-hand above the adoral 

 groove and the chitinons, sickle-shaped pharyngeal tube. It is 

 very soft and flexible, often doubling on itself so that the cilia 

 of one-half of the ventral surface, to which they are confined, 

 wriggle against the cover-glass, while the remainder are pad- 

 dling on the slide. It is perhaps on account of this soft struct- 

 ure that it is so peculiarly liable to maiming and deforming ac- 

 cidents. I have taken it in shallow ponds, at the bottom of 

 which it delights to grovel, with so much of its substance re- 

 moved from unexpected spots and in such unexpected patterns, 

 that if the whimsical form thus presented could become per- 

 manent and be transmitted to its descendants, they would rank 

 among nondescript curiosities like Barnum's mermaid or woolly 

 horse. In Fig. 2 is shown an example, with a triangular piece 



Fig. 1. Fig. 2. Fig. 3. 



gone from the right-hand lateral margin, and a linear projection 

 resembling a thickened cilium, conspicuous on the left-hand 

 dorsolateral border. It is not easy to imagine how or by what 

 a piece of that shape could be taken from the sarcode. The ani- 

 malcule was under continuous observation for several hours, 

 but the wound, if it was a wound, did not close. The creat- 

 ure became more and more sluggish, and at last turning over to 

 the malformed side, it quietly died; the body speedily disinte- 

 grated, the double nucleus faded away, and nothing was left of 

 the Loxodes but a few amorphous particles trembling in the 



