SOME PROTOZOA OF ESPECIAL INTEREST FROM 
VAN CORTLANDT PARK, NEW YORK. 
GARY N. CALKINS. 
BroLocisrs in the vicinity of New York are particularly for- 
tunate in having in Van Cortlandt Park a pond which yields a 
great variety of interesting forms belonging to the lowest classes 
of animal life. For the casual passer-by the pond is an 
unsightly spot, but the green scum which covers parts of its 
surface, and the healthy water-plants around its edges indicate 
to the microscopist a rich fauna. 
Van Cortlandt Park is about nine miles from the Grand Cen- 
tral Station at Forty-second Street, New York, and is reached 
by way of the Putnam Division of the New York Central Rail- 
road. The trains on this division leave New York at the 
terminal of the Elevated Railroad at Eighth Avenue and One 
Hundred and Fifty-fifth Street at least twice each hour, and 
from this point Van Cortlandt is only four miles. The pond 
lies in front of the station at Van Cortlandt, extending away 
to the northeast. Following the railroad up to the northern 
end of the pond, beyond the spot where an offshoot of the 
pond passes below the track to the left, a thick bed of lily 
pads on the right indicates the spot where Amba proteus can 
be invariably found. A quantity of the superficial slime cover- 
ing the bottom should be scooped up in a Mason jar, or other 
collecting jar which has been used only for living things, and 
with a small amount of water carried back to the laboratory. 
Immediate examination shows isolated forms of different genera 
of Protozoa, which will be seen again later in considerable 
numbers, Among these will be an occasional Amoeba, Actino- 
spherium, Stentor, etc., — forms commonly found in similar 
Pond water. If the material be emptied into flat dishes about . 
z deep and 12” to 15” in diameter, and covered with about an 
Inch and a half of tap water, the majority of the forms originally 
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