I897J MICROSCOPICAL JOURNAL 107 



Physicians can Testify as to Stains. — After an examin- 

 ation thereof, both under a microscope and by a chemical 

 analysis, the supreme court of South Carolina holds, in the 

 homicide case of State v. Martin, decided July 11, 189f), 

 that physicians are clearly entitled as experts to g-iye their 

 opinion as to the character of stains found on a piece of 

 floor {Jour. A. M. A. ). That the latter was not taken from 

 the house in \yhich the defendant lived at the time of the 

 alleg'ed homicide until a few days before the trial, after 

 the defendant had moved from it, and while it was occu- 

 pied by another person, it is further held did not render it 

 inadmissible in evidence, thoug-h the force of the evidence 

 was perhaps weakened by these circumstances. 



BIOLOGICAL NOTES. 



Rhizopods as Scavengers. — It is interesting- to see what 

 a small animal can do as a scaveng-er. Mr. Thomas Craig", 

 at a meeting- of the Natural Science Association of Staten 

 Island, exhibited a bottle, the inside of which had been 

 covered with alg^a^ and a small diatom to such an extent as 

 to make it practically opaque. Upon examination he not- 

 iced that a portion near the bottom was clear. A further 

 examination showed that an army of rhiz(^pods were march- 

 ing- in reg-ular order, eating- as they went. 



The name of the animal is Centropvxis aculeata, one of 

 the lobose rhizopods. The animal itself is only a drop of 

 jelly, in which the hig-hest powers of the microscope re- 

 veal no org-anization of any kind, yet it can travel by means 

 of pseudopodia, whieh are merely parts of the body pro- 

 truded from any part of it. By the same means it can 

 sieze its food, convey it inside its body and then dig-est it, 

 and when all the nutriment is exhausted cast the refuse 

 out. This it does at any part of the mass as it has neither 

 head nor tail. 



This particular animal builds a shell for itself, com- 

 posed of a material like chitin, and g-rains of sand on the 

 empty shell of diatoms. The chitin is produced l)y tlie 



