the Distinctive Characters in Amoeba. 115 



1854, and the declaratioiij at the commencement of the papei-, 

 that the same nomenclature should be adopted as he had used 

 in papers published in 1856, necessitates the inference that 

 I had adopted his name without the usual and due acknow- 

 ledgment. Whilst distinctly stating that neither of these 

 conclusions is reconcilable with the facts of the case, I would 

 express my conviction that, as Mr. Carter could not inten- 

 tionally have conveyed such an impression, he will be the fore- 

 most to eradicate it, more especially when I point out that any 

 one unacquainted with my notices in the ' Annals ' for April, 

 May, and June last, perusing his paper of July, could not fail 

 to regard every one of the characters peculiar to these Amoeba 

 as having been brought to notice for the first time by Mr. Carter. 

 Moreover it will be seen, on a careful comparison of our re- 

 spective statements, that, although he does not indicate whose 

 opinions he is endeavouring to controvert*, the previously un- 

 known nature of the characters conclusively point to mine. 



Although satisfied from Mr. Carter's statement in the last 

 Number of the ' Annals,^ that the Amoeba met with by him in 

 Bombay, in 1854, was in all probability the same form he now 

 describes under the name of A. princeps, it is very certain, from 

 what he wrote regarding the typical characters of Amoeba in 

 1856 and 1857 (due reference to which will be made hereafter), 

 that he did not regard them as sufficiently distinct to demand 

 special notice ; otherwise it is difficult to conceive how he failed 

 to furnish a record of them in any of his published papers from 

 1854 to July 1863. For it is necessary to mention that, in a 

 paper by Mr. Carter, entitled " Notes and Corrections on the 

 Organization of Infusoria, &c.,^' which appeared so recently as 

 the year 1861 (Ann. Nat. Hist. ser. 3. vol. viii. p. 281), no re- 

 ference was made to any modification of his opinions on the 

 points now at issue. 



Having thus stated my reasons for thinking it would have 

 been but just had Mr. Carter adduced under the same specific 

 designation whatever further information he possessed con- 

 cerning an organism which cannot be regarded as distinct from 

 Amoeba villosa, it is due to myself to state explicitly (with 

 reference to my declaration that many of the so-called species of 

 Amoeba, if not all of them, are referable to a single specific type) 

 that although of opinion that A. hilimbosa, A. radiosa, A. prin- 

 ceps, A. Roeselii, and other varieties are nothing more than im- 

 perfectly developed phases of A. villosa, inasmuch as none of 

 the striking characters pointed out by me as appertaining to 

 A. villosa had been indicated in any of the published defini- 



* Had Mr. Carter done so, the necessity for these observations woukl 

 have been altogether spared me. 



8* 



