AMONG SIMPLE SAECODE OB&ANTSMS. 415 



sarcode offshoots are projected and again withdrawn in the manner 

 of the pseudopodia of an Amoeba, while the whole organism has 

 been occasionally seen to abandon the support over which it had 

 grown, and to creep over neighbouring surfaces, thus far resem- 

 bling in all respects a colossal ramified Amceha. 



From the surface of this sarcode-net there arise, as has just 

 been said, the reproductive capsules or sporangia. In the soft 

 plasma with which these are filled appear a multitude of nuclei, and 

 the plasma then divides into a great number of roundish masses, 

 in each of which a nucleus is enclosed. These are the young 

 spores ; they are accompanied in most species by a fibrous network, 

 the "capillitium" (fig. 9, B, h), which fills up the intervals between 

 the spores. "When mature the sporangium bursts and allows the 

 spores to escape (C). These are each enclosedin a thick membrane, 

 which, after a time, becomes ruptured, and the little soft round 

 mass of protoplasm which it had confined is set at liberty (D). 



This little protoplasm lump encloses a nucleus with a minute 

 central nucleolus, and contains one or two pulsating vacuoles (E) ; 

 and soon after its escape it begins to show spontaneous move- 

 ments, and to exhibit constant changes of form, while one end is 

 drawn out into a long vibratile flagellum, by means of which, when 

 placed in a drop of water under the microscope, it may be seen 

 swimming about in the manner of the swarm-spore of an Alga (F). 

 After a time it may be observed to withdraw its flagellum, emit 

 and retract pseudopodia, and creep about like an Amoeba over the 

 stage of the microscope (Gr). It now takes in foreign bodies as nu- 

 triment, enveloping them in its substance ; it multiplies by self- 

 division, and in all respects conducts itself like a genuine Amoeba. 



In the next place, a certain number of these amoebiform bodies 

 approach one another, come into close contact (H), and ultimately 

 become completely fused together into a common mass of pro- 

 toplasm (I). To the body thus formed by the fusion of the Amosbce, 

 Cienkowski has given the name of "plasmodium." 



The Plasmodium continues, like the simple amoebiform bodies 

 of which it is composed, to grow by the ingestion of solid nutri- 

 ment which it envelopes in its substance (J) ; it throws out ramify- 

 ing and inosculating processes, and finally becomes converted into a 

 protoplasmic network, which, in its turn, gives rise to sporangia 

 with their contained spores, and thtis completes the cycle of its 

 development. 



Under certain conditions not yet perfectly understood the 



