110 PROCEEDINGS OF SOCIETIES. 



Hcrtwig and Leaser's Leptophrjs, 'Arcbiv f'iir Mikrosk. Anatomie,' 

 Baud X, t. ii, f. iii), and its food the moving examples of a Chlamy- 

 doccus swimming about in pairs or fours. The little vampire — 

 which was always altering its figure, and throwing out and with- 

 drawing its slender, slightly branched pseudopodia — when it came 

 in contact with one of these colonies, lay around one of the cells, 

 embraced it, sunk into its outer coat, wrapped up the inner green 

 cell with its own body-substance, then became itself encysted 

 (in order to enjoy its dinne)', unmolested, in comfortable and 

 quiet seclusion, one would suppose !), and so remained for a 

 number of hours (seemingly some twenty-four) ; by and by, the 

 sarcode contents, " in the twinkling of an eye," suddenly burst 

 the cyst and reappeared separated into four to five or six small 

 Vampyrellse, with the same characters of vacuolar, reddish (but 

 paler), granulated sarcode, and the characteristic pseudopodia and 

 movements. In the encysted condition, especially if indeed four 

 Yarapyrellse (which was rare) had each "got hold of" the four com- 

 ponent cells of a colony of the alga, the group would call to mind 

 Cienkow' ski's description of his " Tetraplastic " forms, but this 

 would apparently be a deception, for by far more frequently one 

 only (sometimes two) of the component cells of the alga became 

 the passive victim of this little vampire ; such a partially attacked 

 colony would still move about and carry its destructive visitor 

 with it. When the wall of the encysted parasite lay empty the 

 remains of the vegetable portion could be seen as a condensed 

 black little body, as if so much of it was not capable of being " di- 

 gested," and was thus left behind — as unassimilated fecal matter. 

 Indeed within the encysted examples the alga substance could 

 be seen in difi'erent degrees of alteration, from bright green to 

 brown and black, and gradually becoming smaller in size. Mr. 

 Archer could not dare to name this " rhizopod " or make sure of 

 its individuality ; it might just be a small representative of 

 Cienkowski's own form. It was but scarce in the gathering and 

 the supply soon ran out, and he regretted to say that all he 

 could communicate was this brief record of his " glimpse." 



