PROTEOMYXA. 



919 



pedata l , which moves by a one-sided hyaline border. It is uni-nucleate. Binary 

 fission has been observed as well as the fusion of 2-4 Amoebae into plasmodia in 

 V. variabilis and V. polyblasta. The plasmodia may divide, and in V. polyblasta 

 pass into a resting or hypnotic phase. The cysts may have one, two, or several 

 membranes. The zoocyst, which is very irregular in shape in V. variability in V. 

 pendula attached to its host by a peduncle, and in V. pedata by a plug or process 

 projecting into the cell it has just plundered, gives origin to 2-4 amoebulae which 

 escape simultaneously at as many different spots, leaving faecal residues behind as 

 brown balls. The sporocyst contains a single resting-spore except in V. variabilis 

 where there are two or more. The resting-spore contracts successively several 

 times, forming a cyst membrane at each contraction 2 . The Monodopsis Vampyrel- 

 loides of Klein is probably a Vampyrella. One or more of its Amoebae surround a 

 Tetraspora, fuse and encyst. The contents of the cyst divide into 2-3 amoebulae. 

 Leptophrys ( Vampyrella) vorax is large, sometimes colourless, sometimes reddened 

 by digested chlorophyl, multi-nucleate, filled with paramylum bodies, often mistaken 

 for vacuoles. In locomotion it pushes out irregular lobes and its pseudopodia, 

 which spring from the lobes, are fine and pointed. It undergoes fission, and forms 

 fusion-plasmodia. The zoocyst is of irregular shape and gives origin to 2-6 amoe- 

 bulae. The sporocyst is globular or elongate with a thin membrane, and all in- 

 gesta are expelled before its formation. Its contents contract, and may form a 

 second membrane and contract again ; they are enveloped in a tough spore- 

 membrane. Endyomena polymorpha is a uni- or multi-nucleate amoeba of variable 

 size and irregular shape, living within the sheaths of Scytonemeae. The cyst 

 (? zoocyst) is globular or irregular in shape ; its contents form a second cyst- 

 membrane. 



The second family of M. azoosporeae is the Bursullineae. It contains only 

 Bursulla crystallina which lives on horse-dung. The Amoeba has long pointed 

 pseudopodia. Two or more Amoebae fuse into a rose-red plasmodium. The latter 

 gives origin to one, or if large to 2-3 zoocysts, which are globular or oval and 

 pedunculate. The contents divide into eight Amoebae ; the apex of the cyst then 

 gelatinises and suffers them to escape. The resting-spore (? phase) is globular with 

 a thick membrane : the latter bursts and its contents give rise to a zoocyst. 



The third family is the Monocystaceae, which contains aquatic genera of 

 voracious habit and giving rise only to a sporocyst 3 . Zopf places here Myxastrum 

 (p. 916, ante]. The other member is Enteromyxa paludosa which feeds on Oscilla- 

 toriae and Diatoms, the former tinging the protoplasm blue-green. The Amoeba is 

 typically long (|-i mm.) and worm-like ; it may become branched or reticulate. 



1 ? = Hyalodiscus = Plakopus, p. 905 and note, ante. 



2 Leidy in his ' Freshwater Rhizopoda of N. America ' speaks, p. 255, with reference to Vampy-^ 

 rella lateritia ( = Spirogyrae) of the rapid emission and withdrawal of pin-like pseudopodia, con- 

 sisting of a short stalk with a head. As he himself points out (p. 256), other observers (Cienkowski, 

 Hertwig, and Lesser) have noticed rapid shooting out and as rapid withdrawal of granules in the 

 pointed or lobose pseudopodia of this species. It may be noted here that Zopf states that the mem- 

 brane of the zoocysts of Vampyrella pedata, Monodopsis Vampyrelloides , and Leptophrys vorax, 

 yield with Iodine and Sulphuric acid the blue colour characteristic of cellulose. 



3 Zopf speaks in his article in the Encyclopaedic, &c., quoted infra, of plasmodia in Myxastrum 

 and Enteromorpha. But in neither of these genera has the formation of a plasmodium been actually 

 observed. Both organisms are of large size, Myxastrum $ in., Enteromyxa -fa-fa in. 



