and its Reproductive Cells. 45 



like cells had become ruptured, and that a portion of its proto- 

 plasm, charged with the triangular starch-grains, was slightly 

 protruded through the crevice. It then struck me that the 

 Actinophryans had obtained their starch-grains from this source ; 

 and while looking at the ruptured cell, an Actinophrys made its 

 appearance, and creeping round the cell, at last arrived at the 

 crevice, from which it extracted one of the grains of starch men- 

 tioned, and then crept off to a good distance. Presently, how- 

 ever, it returned to the same cell ; and although there were now 

 no more starch-grains protruding, the Ac tinophrj/s managed again 

 to extract one from the interior, through the crevice. All this 

 was repeated several times, showing that the Actinophrys in- 

 stinctively knew that these were nutritious grains and that they 

 were contained in this cell, and that, although each time after 

 incepting a grain it went away to some distance, it knew how 

 to find its way back to the cell again which furnished this nu- 

 triment. Fig. 6 is a sketch of this, taken at the time, and here 

 reproduced to make the fact more intelligible and impressive. 



On another occasion, I saw an Actinophrys station itself close 

 to a ripe spore-cell of Pythium, which was situated upon a fila- 

 ment oi Spirogyra crassa; and as the young ciliated monadic 

 germs issued forth, one after another, from the dehiscent spore- 

 cell, the Actinophrys remained by it and caught every one of 

 them, even to the last, when it retired to another part of the 

 field, as if instinctively conscious that there was nothing more 

 to be got at the old place (fig. 7). 



But by far the greatest feat of this kind that ever presented 

 itself to me was the catching of a young Acineta by an old 

 sluggish Amoeba, as the former left its parent ; and this took 

 place as follows : — 



In the evening of the 2nd of June, 1858, in Bombay, while 

 looking through a microscope at some Euglence, &c., which had 

 been placed aside for examination in a watch-glass, my eye fell 

 upon a stalked and fixed triangular Acineta [A. mystacina ?), 

 around which an Amoeba was creeping and lingering, as they 

 do when they are in quest of food. But knowing the antipathy 

 that the Amoebce, like almost every other infusorium, have to the 

 tentacles of the Acineta, I concluded that the Amoeba was not 

 encouraging an appetite for its whiskered companion, when I 

 was surprised to find that it crept up the stem of the Acineta 

 and wound itself round its body. This mark of affection, too 

 much like that frequently evinced at the other end of the scale, 

 even where there is mind for its control, did not remain long 

 without interpretation. There was a young Acineta, tender, and 

 without poisonous tentacles (for they are not developed at birth), 

 just ready to make its exit from the parent — an exit which takes 



