9 8 BRITISH FRESHWATER RHIZOPODA. 
differs, probably, according to the hardness of the 
integument. Our own observations prove that the 
organism will first anchor itself to an alga—usually to 
the terminal cell—by means of its longer and more 
mobile pseudopodia, which have a remarkable power of 
concentration. They will gather in a bundle on that 
side of the body, where, for the purpose, they are 
most required. By an exertion of force, difficult to 
understand in so tiny a creature, the filament is 
snapped at a joint, and access to the interior of a cell 
is thus gained, the contents being rapidly absorbed by 
the introduction of two or more digitate, pseudopodal 
processes. 
The method is illustrated on Plate X. Figures 
1 to + were drawn from an example found in the marsh 
at Dunham, Cheshire. The Vampyrella, in this case, 
attached itself to the terminal cell of a fllariené, broke 
it off and emptiedit. Afterwards joint after joint were 
severed, and finally the joints were left, as represented, 
lying almost at right angles. A curious fact observed 
was that alternate joints only of the Conferva were 
cleared of their chlorophyl. 
The method above described would appear, from the 
descriptions of other authors, to be a very unusual 
one. Cienkowski, in ‘ Archiv fiir Mikr. Anat.’ (1865), 
describes the organism as penetrating the cell-wall of 
Spiroqgyi laterally—making a perforation in the in- 
tegument, and through that extracting the chlorophyl. 
More recent writers have made the same observation. 
West (‘Journ. Linn. Soc.,’ Zool., vol. xxviii, p. 333) 
found several of these animals, in a collection from 
Lincolnshire, feeding on the cell-contents of a species 
of Mougeotia, He says: “The animal attached itself 
firmly to the lateral margin of one of the cells of the 
filament, and in a very short time the long, delicate 
pseudopodia were retracted. At the same time the 
clear, outer, protoplasmic zone was continually putting 
forth and retracting shorter and stouter pseudopodia. 
That portion of the animal which originally attached 
