Archer — On Chlamydomyxa Lahynnthuloides. 157 



way originates a cluster of spindles which fuse together in a string, 

 continuing its way ; the thread, however, keeps its own position and 

 extension. We are thus here compelled to distinguish between the 

 less motile basic substance and a second gliding one. Another inter- 

 pretation, that the spindles are but enlargements of the threads, which 

 become moved up and down, is inadmissible, because the spindles, as 

 we have seen, considerably alter their figure e7i route, coalesce, become 

 divided, and proceed fi'om the main reservoir." 



The author, at the conclusion of his memoir* on the Labyrinthulese, 

 again refers to this curious " Fadenplasmodium " appertaining to the 

 unknown fungal (taken by him, he now mentions, from the earth of 

 some flower-pots), and he regrets that he was never able to refijid it 

 for further examination, with the fi'esh light and new experience 

 derived from the study of the two maiiae fonns constituting his new 

 group named Labyrinthulese. At that time, as is seen, he regarded 

 "the central balls as protoplasmic bodies, from which each spindle 

 upon beginning its wandering was produced by constriction. That the 

 spindles pre-exist in the central clusters as such, or in the form of 

 globules, was then a fact unknown to him, whether it were that this 

 differentiation in the filamentary plasmodium (Fadenplasmodium) was 

 not really existent at all, or that the delicacy of the object and the 

 difficulty of observation concealed fi'om him the true state of facts. 

 The filamentary plasmodium observed under a covering glass always 

 perished, for at that time he had made no use of the 'moist chamber.' " 



There is thus pretty evidently a considerable resemblance in this 

 organism, whatever it he, to that herein described. 



The author alluded in his previous memoir on the Plasmodium to 

 this ''enigmatical" production, in order to compare it with certain very 

 similar, though not seemingly at all identical conditions of the plasma 

 of certain Mycetozoa.f Referring to certain filamentary forms assumed 

 thereby, he draws attention to the "formation of lenticular enlarge- 

 ments of the basic substance of the tlareads. The number and size of 

 these of course depend upon the persistence of the interruptions of 

 the current, as also upon the quantity of the substance flowing on- 

 wards after each interval of pause. These isolated masses of the 

 granular substance can glide along the thread up and down, approach, 

 coalesce into a larger expansion, or become removed from one another ; 

 the basic mass of the thread remains also here motionless." 



]^ow, I am much incKned to think that a comparison of the 

 phenomena as here described by Cienkowski for the Fadenplasmodium 

 in Mycetozoa, with those evinced by the organism brought forward by 

 me in this communication, still less a determination of these as but the 

 expressions of similar structures, would not be tenable. The appear- 

 ances and characteristics evinced by my form seem more to admit of 

 comparison with the fungal (from the flower-pot) referred to by 



* Loc. cit., p. 308. t Loc. cif., p. 40.5. 



R. I. A. PllOC, SER. II., VOL. II., SCIENCE. Y 



