THE MICROSCOPE. 9 
washed in distilled water and examined under a one inch objective 
to see that the fibers from the felt wheel are all washed from the 
pulp. The pulp can now be stained with carmine, and the section 
kept in alcohol, until you are ready for mounting, when the section 
should be passed through clove oil to thin balsam, + Leave it in a 
small dish an hour before placing it upon the slide. Do not leave it 
in the clove oil too long as that would obliterate the canaliculi. 
[Read before the New Jersey State Microscopical Society, November 19, 1883.] 
ASTASIA HASMATODES. 
BY PROFESSOR SAMUEL LOCKWOOD. 
‘THE announcement of the discovery in the fauna of the New 
World of a well-known Old World form, even in the infusoria, 
should be made only upon due consideration. Hence, to find for 
the first time an undoubted species common to both continents, is 
both a pleasure and a surprise. Last September while pond-hunt- 
ing near Twin Mountain House, White Mountains, N. H., I ob- 
served what appeared to be a red gore, or scum on the surface of a 
still and shallow pool, in a mountain meadow. It looked like a red 
oxide. Several visits led me to believe that it gathered on the sur- 
face, then sank to the bottom. I have seen pollen of a deep orange, 
but never of a blood-red; yet I looked sharp for any flowers that 
might drop their pollen on tie water. There were none. Some of 
this red matter was secured in a vial and soon after examined in the 
microscope. To my astonishment it was the singular infusorian 
Astasia hematodes. Though not the pretty object that some of the 
rotifers are, this infusoria is extremely interesting, on two considera- 
tions especially. 
First, its distinctly amoeboid habits. Its vicissitude of form is 
quite remarkable for a distinctiveness of method. You see it elon- 
gate into a spindle. After resting it changes into a pear-shape. 
After another repose it becomes globular, in fact an oblate spheroid. 
Still another rest, and it is flattened into a perfectly circular disc. 
As respects organs, it seems organless, and is almost as simple 
in its structure as an amoeba. True, it has a point-like projection, 
like the merest apology for a tail, which, in an adhesive way, it can 
convert into a point-d’appui, thus securing a sort of swinging move- 
