284 W. ARCHER. 



Of these recent memoirs the most important and complete 

 is that of Hertwig and Lesser.^ Those authors give a sys- 

 tematic arrangement of the forms, which, brief and prelim- 

 inary as it may be and, even though it should turn out to be 

 possibly only provisional, must, so far as our knowledge of 

 the forms goep, serve in the meantime a useful purpose. This 

 I purpose to recapitulate after giving a running description 

 of the various new forms lately introduced by those and 

 other (almost contemporary) observers. 



Hertwig and Lesser regard the lowly organisms compre- 

 hended under the general name " Rhizopoda " as wanting in 

 those definite characters which would connect them, on one 

 or other side, either to the animal or vegetable kingdom, and 

 hence they hold they must be relegated to the " Protista." 

 It would be out of place here at all to attempt to discuss 

 whether or not there be a real necessity for the formation of 

 a kingdom so-called. Suffice it that the forms falling here 

 are admittedly amongst the most lowly of organisms, few of 

 which become elevated above the simple stage of a single 

 " cell.'' These authors conceive that they (like colourless 

 blood-corpuscles or wandering connective-tissue-cells) are 

 but composed of an undifferentiated protoplasm, whose vital 

 activity forms the common seat for all the functions. 



I venture myself to suppose this may be a somewhat too 

 general assertion, for the sharp line of demarcation to be seen 

 in certain Heliozoa between endo- and ectosarc and the seem- 

 ing restriction to, or at least chief retention of the incepted 

 food in, one or other region (in different species with and 

 without " skeleton ") would seem to point to a certain 

 amount of restriction of location of at least the digestive 

 function, to a definite part of the body-substance. 



On the whole, indeed, one must agree with the authors 

 that nowhere can we say absolutely that this or that part 

 (and no other) subserves to nutrition, to perception, to move- 

 ment, to reproduction, but rather we are compelled to the 

 assumption that one and the same portion which may, for 

 instance, subserve to motion, may take a share likewise in 

 assimilation and perception. 



In these simple protoj)lasmic (sarcodic) beings the subject 

 of consideration, motion and contractility, is a property of 

 the whole body-parenchyma. This renders itself evident 

 internally by a circulation of the granules embedded in the 

 plasma and externally by a change of place and by the 



* Drs. E. Hertwig and E. Lesser, " Ueber Rhizopoden und denselben 

 nahestehende Organismen," in ' Schultze's Archiv f. Mikr. Anatomic,' Bd. 

 %, Suppleraentheft (1874). 



