20 Mr. H. J. Carter on Freshwater Rhizopoda 
visionally called A, Gleichenii? (figs. 5-8), showing its different 
stages from the active to the passive capsuled condition, as it 
affords the only instance that I have ever noticed of an Ameba 
becoming covered with a distinct, peculiar, brown, chitinous (?) 
capsule. It was observed at Bombay, just before the commence- 
ment of the “rainy monsoon,” on the 13th of June 1855; and 
the figures in my journal are accompanied by the following 
remarks :— 
“Took some water from a tank in the garden, which had be- 
come nearly dry, leaving the shallow pool which remained in it 
scattered over with patches of Oscillatoria, and the water ren- 
dered green by the presence of Euglena. Found this water 
nearly filled with large Am@be, which were very active and 
contained fresh green and brown or half-digested food; also a 
number of circular, colourless, semitransparent, apparently cap- 
suled, refractive bodies, of different sizes, the largest ~J,,th of 
an inch in diameter [these, at the time, I viewed as “ ovules ;” 
they may have been the “reproductive cells ;” they could hardly 
have been starch-granules, from their circular form]; a large 
spherical nucleus containing a faintly marked nucleolus, a con- 
tracting vesicle, and granules. Having put some scores of these 
into a little clean water in a watch-glass, at 12 o’clock in the 
day, I found that the greater part of them, by 10 a.m. on the 
following day, had become respectively enclosed in a round, 
conical, rough, brown capsule, which was attached to the watch- 
glass by its point or by a short pedicle prolonged therefrom. 
Many others were seen in different stages between the most 
active and the entirely fixed and capsuled condition, as repre- 
sented in the figures to which I have referred. It was remark- 
able to witness the increasing density of the pellicle, as indicated 
by the difficult and sudden way in which the sarcode every now 
and then burst through the surface of those individuals which, 
although uncapsuled and still transparent, were already fixed by 
their pedicle to the glass. Some of the largest of these Amebe, 
in a subround state, measure ;},th of an inch in diameter. In 
their most active condition they moved about by globular ex- 
pansions; and in no instance did I observe any pointed ones. 
Perhaps this kind of polymorphism may have been induced 
by the thickening of the pellicle, and at another period the 
pseudopodia might have been pointed. The sides of the tank, 
which was excavated in trap-rock, were scattered over with dried 
masses of Spongilla, and the little water that was left in it be- 
strewn with their capsules.” 
I tried to repeat the experiment. ust mentioned; but Coleps, 
the most destructive of all the Infusoria, became developed in 
the watch-glass, which appeared overnight to contain nothing 
