Miscellaneous. 261 
the view of ascertaining their usual mode of feeding. Ordinary 
experience had prepossessed him to direct his attention to the fore 
part of the body (that is to say, the part in advance in the move- 
ments of the animal) as the point at which food would be taken. 
He had been surprised at the rarity of the occurrence in which he 
had seen Amcbe swallow food when the apparent greediness of the 
animal was taken into consideration. In the last number of the 
‘ Popular Science Review’ there is an interesting article by Dr. P. 
M. Dunean, entitled “Studies amongst Amwbe.” From this he 
learned, from the observations of Dr. Duncan, that the Amabe 
habitually take their food at what may be considered the posterior 
part of the body. With this hint he examined specimens of the 
curious amoeboid animal described under the name of Dinameba, 
of which he had recently obtained a good supply from the ditches 
of a cranberry-field at Atco, New Jersey. He had since on several 
occasions had the opportunity of seeing the Dinameba take its food, 
which was done. as indicated by Dr. Duncan, at the posterior part 
of the body. One instance appeared to him to be particularly inter- 
esting, and was related as follows :— 
Seeing a specimen of Dinameba with its left side in contact with 
a filament of the alga Bambusina Brebissonii, he was led to watch 
it. On closer examination it proved that the alga entered to the 
left of the tail and extended through the body, causing a slight 
bulge of the ectosare by its other end to the left of the head. The 
Dinameba became slightly elongated, and the alga sunk more in- 
wardly from behind. The former moved with an inclination to 
the right, causing the alga to assume an oblique position from left 
to right. The anterior end of the alga suddenly protruded from 
the body of the animal, so that this appeared to be pierced by it. 
In this condition the alga entered the Dinameba to the left of the 
tail and protruded at the right of the head. . Gradually the alga 
was made to assume a transverse position. The right extremity 
of the alga now became depressed and the left elevated, so that 
the alga assumed nearly its original position, in which it appeared 
to perforate the left border of the animal obliquely from the tail 
end. It gradually acquired a central position, penetrating the 
animal from tail to head. The Dinameba now elongated at both 
ends, a third greater than its former length, extending in a fusi- 
form manner upon the alga. The animal next doubled upon itself, 
so that both ends of the alga approached in front and protruded 
side by side from the head. One extremity of the alga then sunk 
within the Dinameba, and subsequently the other extremity, so 
that the filament, about three times the length of the animal, be- 
came coiled up within it. 
The observation of swallowing the Bambusina was made in the 
afternoon of September 15. In the evening, several hours after 
the first observation, on looking at the Dinameba, which had been 
preserved in an animalcule-cage, it was observed sitting, as it were, 
on a large filament of the alga Didymoprium Grevilit. The pos- 
terior end of the animal extended as a cylindrical expansion along 
the alga to a greater length than the breadth of the body of the 
