THE AMERICAN 



MONTHLY 



MICROSCOPICAL JOURNAL. 



Vol. X. JULY, 1889. No. 7. 



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 matters, and all books, pamphlets, exchanges, etc., should be addressed to Ameri- 

 can Monthly Microscopical Journal, Box 6jo, Washington, D. C. 



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Note on a Species of Podophrya found in Calcutta.* 



By W. J. SIMMONS, 



CALCUTTA, INDIA. 



All of us who have searched the Calcutta tank waters are familiar 

 with numerous forms of ciliated and flagellate infusoria, but you will 

 agree with me when I say that we less frequently meet with the tentacle- 

 bearing animalcules. The organism I am about to describe belongs 

 to the Tentacidifera, and was found by me in a phial of water taken 

 from the " Teencooniah (or triangular) Tank" at the head of Wood 

 street. Our President sent me the bottle, which he had received from 

 the Rev. Father Lafont, about the 10th January. At that time the 

 tank was covered with a red scum of Euglenoe, the organism which is 

 referred to in Dr. D. D. Cunningham's valuable memoir on " The Re- 

 lation of Cholera to Schizomycete Organisms," p. 10. ' The rain we 

 had two or three weeks ago bi'oke up this red scum, and when I visited 

 the tank on Sunday week, the 3d instant, there was very little left 

 (along the southern side of the tank), and in this scum a species of 

 cyclops preponderated, while the Euglence were less numerous and 

 less active. To return, however, to the phial above referred to. On 

 the 16th January I found the dusty debris, composed of decaying 

 Euglence, etc., which lay at the bottom of the bottle, contained several 

 Podophrya, which I at once placed under observation and sketched. 

 They bear a superficial resemblance to the Sun-animalcule, Actinophrys 

 sol, but differ from it in that Actinophrys is a free swimmer, while 

 Podophrya is fixed to a single, and, in the case of the species found 

 by me, a slender stem. The hyaline rays or tenacles are numerous 

 in this species, and are rather longer than the diameter of the body. 

 The length of the body varies from about -g^th to ^^^th of an inch ; its 

 breadth is about yJg-^th, and the posteriorly attached stem averages 



*Read before the Microscopical Society of Calcutta, on the 14th February, 1889. 



Copyright, 1889, by C. W. Smiley. 



