280 Mr. H. J. Carter on the Fresh- and Salt-water 



for the purpose of lessening the trouble of engraving and to 

 avoid confusion in the plate. In the group, fig. 3, the tentacles 

 were smooth, and bore no superfluous portions of sarcode ; but 

 it will presently be seen, as it has already been shown in the 

 Actinophryans figured in my last plate (/. c), and as it will be 

 seen in others in the one illustrating this paper, that the pre- 

 sence of these additional portions of ectosarc (which may assume 

 various forms and positions along the shaft of the tentacle and 

 at its extremity) are but contingencies, and therefore of no spe- 

 cific value, while they strongly evidence the existence of an axial 

 support within. 



The Actinophryans grouped together were not all of the same 

 size, having varied a little in diameter below the -rxoth part of 

 an inch. 



In fig. 4, which represents three separate Actinophryans 

 sketched on a previous occasion (probably from fresh water), 

 each was surrounded by a peripheral layer of vacuoles (which 

 in the focal disk assumes the form of a chain only), but neither 

 presented any trace of a nucleus in the interior. In a the va- 

 cuoles of this layer were uniformly small ; in b they were uni- 

 formly large ; and in c some were large and others small, while 

 the tentacles of the latter only bore the drop-like masses of 

 ectosarc just described. These Actinophryans were each about 

 •4-f3-th of an inch in diameter; they were sketched in January 1855, 

 but there is no record of the kind of water, whether salt or fresh, 

 from which they were obtained, although the following speci- 

 men (fig. 5), which was -re-oth of an inch in diameter, and found 

 in fresh water, is so identical in appearance with the last men- 

 tioned, that in all probability, as just stated, the whole came 

 from fresh water. Fig. 5 is chiefly introduced to show that the 

 ectosarc existed on the extremities of the tentacles in little 

 spherical masses, as well as in ovoid ones along their shafts. 

 In its interior some Diatoms were observed, which had been 

 incepted for food, but no nucleus. 



It was from observing the last mentioned Actinophrj^ans and 

 others like them, that I was led to make the following remarks 

 in my " Notes on the Organization of the Infusoria " (Annals, 

 vol. xviii. p. 129, 1856), and which I see have beon quoted, but 

 not exactly understood, in the last edition of Pritchard^s ' Hist, 

 of Infusoria,' p. 250, as follows : — ^'Actinophrys /So/, Ehr., is sur- 

 rounded by a peripheral layer of vesicles, which, when fully dilated, 

 appear to be all of the same size, to have the means of commu- 

 nicating with each other, and each, individually, to contract and 

 discharge its contents externally, as occasion may require, al- 

 though generally one only appears and disappears in the same 

 place." From thi^ J jnfer th^tl must have seen these " vesi- 



