AMON& SIMPLE SAKCODE ORGANISMS. 283 



forms a main trunk, which soon subdivides into branches from 

 which others are emitted ; and in a short time we see a complex 

 system of ramifications extending far and wide, and formed by 

 hyaline, quite colourless threads of extreme tenuity. 



At the same time there appear in these threads minute fusi- 

 form bodies of a pale bluish colour, which may be seen to be in 

 constant motion along them. They are identical with the round 

 bluish granules of the central mass ; and it is only on leaving 

 this to wander along the filaments that they assume the fusiform 

 shape. 



Archer has found no nuclei in any part of his Cldainidoniyxls, 

 either in the central protoplasm or in the moving spindles. Foreign 

 bodies which had been ingested as nutriment were not unfrequent 

 in the protoplasm of even the completely encysted organism. Tiie 

 whole of the protruded protoplasm can again withdraw itself into 

 the cyst, and then, by the excretion of a wall, shut itself com- 

 pletely in. 



The only thing which he has seen bearing any evidence of a re- 

 productive process is a subdivision of the contents of the cyst 

 into globular masses, which, at first naked, become afterwards in- 

 vested by a special membrane. 



From Archer's observations it would seem that Chlamidomyccis 

 originates parasitically in the cells of Sphagnum and other water- 

 plants, and that it afterwards quits the cavity of the cell and be- 

 comes external. 



It is plain that in Chlamidomyxis we have a form very closely 

 allied to Labyrinthulea. From this it differs in possessing an exter- 

 nal, laminated, cellulose cyst, which appears to be constant, and not, 

 as in many other low sarcoid organisms, confined to a resting-period 

 in the cycle of development. The absence of nuclei in the fusi- 

 form bodies is another difference of importance. But the most 

 important point in which Chlamidomyxis differs from Lahyrinthulea, 

 as described by Cienkowski, is found in the nature of the fila- 

 mentary plexus which forms the paths along which the fusiform 

 bodies perform their strange wanderings. This, instead of being 

 formed of a rigid non-vitalized excretion, as is maintained by 

 Cienkowski to be the ease in Lalyrinthtdea, is shown by the ob- 

 servations of Archer to form in Chlamidomyxis a contractile net of 

 living protoplasm ; and the motions of the fusiform bodies along 

 the filaments, which was so difficult to explain in Lahyrinthulea, 

 will be easily understood in Chlamidomyxis, wliere it is obviously 



