Miscellaneous. 411 
I now submit a new and similar case observed in a Protozoan 
already known, but hitherto insufficiently investigated. Its or- 
ganization is, moreover, so curious that its description will be 
gladly received by those who are interested in the morphology of 
unicellular organisms. 
This Protozoan, which I found in the basin of the experimental 
garden at Hamma, near Algiers, is Lieberkuehnia, a freshwater 
rhizopod first described by Claparéde and Lachmann, and after- 
wards reexamined by Cienkowski. This latter author did not 
identify the forms observed by him with those of Claparéde and 
Lachmann, and called them by the new name of Gromia paludosa; 
but this mistake has already been corrected by Biitschli in his ‘ Pro- 
tozoa’ (p. 106). The observations of these authors, although ex- 
tremely interesting, are far from being complete; they are more- 
over erroneous in some essential points. 
The form of the body is variable, and may be perfectly spherical, 
ovoid, oblong, or even fusiform. Each individual can assume all 
these forms; and when the same specimen is under observation 
during several days, it is seen to pass through all these changes. 
These changes take place very slowly. The carapace is very trans- 
parent, and is closely applied to the surface of the body, and changes 
with it, lengthening, expanding, contracting, and returning to the 
spherical form at the same time with it. It also shares in the fissi- 
parous division. I therefore cannot regard it as a true carapace in 
the same sense as that of the Arcelle and the Difflugie. In these 
latter the carapace is a product of chitinous secretion of the nature 
of a skeleton, and has a very different morphological value. In 
Lieberkuehmia the seeming carapace is in reality only an integument 
or ectosarc, which can be isolated by certain reagents from the en- 
dosarc, but which resists less than the latter certain dissolving re- 
agents. 
The pseudopodia spread out at the extremity of a laterally inserted 
peduncle. They are capable of extending toa great distance. I 
have measured some which attained the length of 2°26 millim., the 
body of the animal having a diameter of from 0-15 to 0°16 millim. 
The circulatory movement of the sarcode is one of the most rapid 
that I have yet observed. The granules move through a space of 0°66 
millim. a minute, the surrounding temperature being 23° C. (73° F.). 
The Infusoria which strike against the meshes of their network are 
arrested and rendered motionless, as has already been observed in 
the case of many other Rhizopods. In this way Lieberkuchnia is 
able to capture large Infusoria, such as Paramecium aurelia. The 
Infusoria when taken are absorbed in various ways: sometimes 
they are swallowed whole ; sometimes, on the contrary, the sarcode 
of the pseudopodia envelops them on every side and constitutes 
around them a digestive vacuole, in which they are dissolved outside 
of, and frequently at some distance from, the body. They do not 
reach this till later on, when they are already assimilated to the 
substance of the pseudopodia in whose circulatory movement they 
disappear. The digestion takes place and is finished entirely out- 
