18 Infusoria from Fresh Water. [January, 
ties of this substance consist mainly in its solubility by alka- 
line fluids and its affinity for oxygen, “ which is linked to it by 
ties so easily broken. that it can be transferred to other easily 
oxidizable bodies existing by its side, that it can be given up 
when its solutions are gently heated in vacuo or agitated at 
moderate temperatures with large quantities of inactive gases, 
as nitrogen or hydrogen.”* This oxygen carrier next formed a 
cell especially adapted to its transportation. 
A’ 
oWe 
SOME APPARENTLY UNDESCRIBED INFUSORIA 
FROM FRESH WATER. 
BY ALFRED C. STOKES, M.D. 
HE Infusoria whose descriptions are appended have as yet 
been observed only in the shallow ponds of Western New 
York, although they doubtless occur as plentifully elsewhere. 
Near the pretty village of Olean, in the bosom of the western 
hills, they pass their little lives amid attractive surroundings. 
Scarlet clusters of the cardinal flower and great bunches of yel- 
low primroses make brilliant the shores of their aquatic haunts, 
while tall Rubus odoratus holds it purple roses aloft in the warm 
air, and Anemone pennsylvanica lifts its white blossoms above the 
“lush and lusty grass.” A bird chirps in the shading maple 
boughs, a frog cries and splashes into the pool amid the Myrio- 
phyllum and Utricularia ; a meditative cow gazes quietly at the 
intruding biped, and the blue sky bends above, and the blue mists 
rest in the hollows of the distant mountains, The placid water 
teems with life. A furrowed Euglena, hitherto undescribed and 
unseen by the eye of man, rotates like an animated screw in and 
out among the utricles and leaflets of the water weeds. 
This green creature, which I have named Euglena torta, bears 
the remotest resemblance to any known member of its genus. The 
parenchyma is as usual uninterruptedly green, but the characteris- 
tic features are the spiral grooves or keel-like ridges traversing the 
entire body from anterior extremity to posterior i where 
they are lost in the origin of that colorless caudal prolongation: 
The animalcule is but slightly flexible and apparently not change- 
able in shape during life. After death by poisoning the ridges and 
1Gamgee’s Phys, Chem. of the Animal Body, p. 91, 
