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NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY OF DUBLIN. 
Raphidiophrys viridis (Arch.). 
P): EX) aig: 
Specific Characters.—Inner rounded masses hyaline, globular, with nu- 
merous large chlorophyll granules, arranged in a hollow globular manner 
within the periphery; outer region slightly buff-coloured, containing 
densely numerous, elongate, very slender, straight or slightly curved, act- 
cular spicula, acutely pointed at each end, and lying in every possible di- 
rection; pseudopodia numerous, extremely slender, very long, hyaline, 
comparatively rigid, never coalescing. No evident nucleus nor pulsating 
vacuoles. 
Measurements.—Diameter of inner globes ranging about 715th of an 
inch, the size of the compound clusters varying according to the number 
of contained globes, sometimes so large as to be seen by the unassisted 
eye, poised in the water, like specimens of Actinospherium, but green- 
ish, not white. 
Localities.—Pools at Ballylusk, and one or two other situations near 
Carrig-mountain ; near Tinnehely, county of Wicklow ; and near Multy- 
farnham, county of Westmeath; very sparingly at Glengariff, county of 
Cork; rare and local, and sometimes seemingly confined to some very 
restricted area of the few pools which have produced it, but in those 
same spots found, by careful search, at various seasons. 
Affinities and Differences.—1f this fine form possessed a central cap- 
sule, there would be, so far as I see, no necessity to make a new 
genus for it, for in that case it would be simply a new fresh-water spe- 
cies of Spherozoum (Meyen) Haeckel. There is not seemingly any other 
fresh-water Rhizopod for which it could be mistaken. The presence of 
the spicula would alone quite decidedly separate it from Heterophrys 
myriopoda. Greef, indeed, in his paper already cited,* accuses me, by 
reason of hasty observation and of faulty comparison with Carter’s de- 
scription, of having misapprehended the true characters of Acanthocystis 
turfacea, and suggests that I must, therefore, have only applied a new 
name to that already-known form, and he cites my brief reference to it 
at our Microscopical Club meeting + But I may be here forgiven for 
venturing to observe that, 1f Greef had more closely looked over the 
record of that meeting, he would have seen that, as well as Raphidio- 
phrys, I likewise exhibited at the same meeting, in contradistinction, 
examples of Acanthocystis turfacea, then for the first time identified and 
exhibited in Ireland. Further, even in the cursory record there made of 
Raphidiophrys, it was described as possessing, ‘“‘immersed and entangled in 
the outer region, beyond all computation densely numerous, very slender, 
elongate spicules, acute at both ends, lying in every possible direction” — 
thus showing characters which could in no way, even most superficially 
examined, be mistaken for the radiant vertical spicules of Acanthocystis 
* Loe. cit., p. 482. 
t ‘Quart. Journ. of Micr. Science,” vol. vii., 1867. 
