on the Surface of Amoeba as a Specific Distinction. 199 



" I accordingly propose that it should be named A. villosa " {' An- 

 nals/ May 1863, p. 366). Thus our observations were made inde- 

 pendently of each other, and, as 1 thought, on different species ; 

 for I could not conceive then that any one possessing a know- 

 ledge of the freshwater Amoebce could confound A. j^rinceps with 

 any other form of Amoeba, or give it a new name without 

 making particular mention of this circumstance. Nor had I sub- 

 sequently any i-eason to think otherwise, until I had the pleasure 

 of making ])r. Wallich's acquaintance personally towards the 

 end of May, when I learnt from him that he regarded A. villosa 

 and A. princeps as one and the same; upon which I added this 

 remark to the rough (as it now stands in the printed) copy of my 

 paper {loc. cit. p. 44) — not pointedly, at the commencement, but 

 cursorily, in the latter half of the paper. 



But what is the value of this " villous surface " on Amoeba, as 

 a specific character, if Dr. "VVallich assumes that " many of the 

 so-called species of Amoeba, if not all,^^ are mere "varieties" 

 (vol. xi. p. 287, and vol. xii. p. 115) of his A. villosa ? since they 

 certainly all do not present the "villi." And where is the 

 specific character to determine that all the other Amoebce are 

 mere varieties of A. villosa when the " villi " are absent ? 



Independently of not agreeing with Dr. Wallich in such an 

 assumption, I saw that the presence of the "villi" in A. prin- 

 ceps was inconstant, which induced me to lay stronger weight on 

 that which appears to me to be a peculiar form of the nucleus in 

 this species ; and until convinced to the contrary, I must adhere 

 to these views. My opinions regarding the specific value of the 

 villi and the form of the nucleus respectively in A. princeps will 

 be found in my paper ; so I need not repeat them here. 



Let anyone conversant with the subject compare my figures 

 of "Amoeba radiosa (?) Duj." (Annals, vol. xviii. 1856, pi. 5), dia- 

 grammatic as these are, with Auerbach^s A. bilimhusa (Siebold 

 und Kolliker^s Zeitschr. vol. vii. pi. 19. figs. 1-10), and see if 

 they are not so much alike that they may be assumed to be the 

 same species. And then let him compare these with Ehrenberg^s, 

 Dujardin's, and my own figures of A. princeps, and see if the 

 differences between these two Amoebce are not quite sufficient for 

 specific distinction. Yet Dr. Wallich assumes that A. bilimbosa 

 and A. princeps are mere varieties of one species, of which the 

 typical form is his A. villosa, whether they have the villous sur- 

 face (his chief specific character) or not ; while he further adds 

 that " the balance of evidence " appears to be in favour of the 

 " whole of the varieties of Amoeba " being reducible to a single 

 specific type ! (Annals, ser. 3. vol. xi. p. 443) : the italics are mine. 



With these views, then, I saw that it was impossible for 

 Dr. Wallich and myself to get on together in this subject, and 



