362 w, ARCHER, 



cirrhis, Perty, I should strongly suspect its identity with 

 my own Acanthocystis Pertyana. Could this latter, indeed, 

 be proven (but it probably never can) the form should be 

 of course designated Acanthocystis brevicirrhis (Perty), 

 Archer. Greeff's A. pallida must, I suppose, be merely an 

 accidental colourless form of ^. turfacea. 



Hertwig and Lesser point out that the basal-plates of the 

 spines do not lie in absolute contact with the superficies 

 of the globular inner sarcode body, whence originate the 

 pseudopodia ; that is to say, the bases of the spines are 

 held apart from the inner sarcode-body, slightly above the 

 level of the origin of the pseudopodia; the latter are thus 

 carried a very short distance upwards, through a very narrow 

 zone seemingly em/>% (except of water ?) everywhere surround- 

 ing the body and intervening between its surface and the in- 

 terior of the globular space formed by the aggregate " skele- 

 ton," before passing outward (throughits minute intervals) into 

 the surrounding medium. This being so, those authors aver 

 they cannot coincide with me in accepting any protoplasmic 

 stratum external to the inner body-mass(giving off the pseudo- 

 podia and in some forms enclosing the chlorophyll-granules). 

 They say there may be certain protoplasmic emanations 

 given off from the pseudopodia connecting the spines together. 

 But can any one examine our Acanthocystis turfacea from time 

 to time and not perceive the cloudy, granular (possibly indeed 

 somewhat incoherent-looking), certainly, as compared to the 

 body-mass, much softer, substance in which the spines are 

 more or less immersed ? Nay, is it not depicted in several 

 of the figures of Acanthocystis extant?^ Nay, how could 

 this " skeleton " possibly '' come there " if it be really 

 altogether external to the living part of the organism ? I 

 should rather suppose that the seeming vacuous interspace 

 around the body may be also occupied thereby, but here of 

 an extremely hyaline nature (so also Pompholyxophrys and 

 others). Indeed I should be inclined to hold that this outer 

 envelojje has its parallel in other forms, {Heterophi'ys, Raphi- 

 diophrys). But it may be indeed that it is in some forms to a 

 certain extent or perhaps sometimes wholly evanescent, and 

 that a certain epoch it may have (dissolved ? and) dis- 

 appeared. In the form which (perhaps erroneously) I had 

 referred to the genus Heterophrys as H. Fockii, this outer 

 envelope is shut out when the inner globular body-mass passes 

 into the encysted state. 



The authors were unable to see any sharp line of demar- 

 cation between endo- and ectosarc, as in the other species, 

 ^ 'Archiv fiir Mikrosk. Anat.,' Ed. v, t. xxvii, f. 18 and 19. 



