70 
Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy. 
tions (variously figured ''spicules"), deposited in the external region 
of its living mass ; and yet other '' sarcode" hard by which produces its 
solid parts more deeply immersed in its living mass, and in all the ex- 
ternal circumstances being alike. There is " sarcode" always colour- 
less, or nearly so — '' sarcode" imbued with various variations of hue — 
'' sarcode" bearing certain pigment granules — each speciality bound 
up with individuality of form, and in all the external circumstances 
being alike. There is '' sarcode" slow in projecting and retracting the 
characteristic- '' pseudopodia," and "sarcode" which can send forth and 
withdraw its '' pseudopodia" with comparative rapidity and energy; 
there is '' sarcode" which can send out comparatively very slender 
and long, even delicately filiform, pseudopodia, and other '' sarcode" 
which cannot project such prolongations, except as little more than, 
as it were, narrow lobes of its own body-mass, and produced only to a 
comparatively limited extent ; sucH specialities, in various degrees, 
seemingly bound up with certain outward figures, and at same time 
the external circumstances being alike. There is '' sarcode" seemingly 
quite, or nearly all but, rigidly abstinent, with lots of food around, 
and side by side sarcode" gluttonous to satiety; '' sarcode" in whose 
substance not yet any crude food has been seen; and ''sarcode" so 
hungry that, at least, one form of rhizopod exists whose seemingly 
highest aspiration and even ultimate aim in existence would appear to 
be to die of sheer rej)letion — these specialities in various degrees like- 
wise seemingly bound up with certain outward figures, and at same 
time the external circumstances being alike. 
In thus cursorily drawing attention to some of the idiosyncrasies of 
one "sarcode" as compared with another " sarcode," or, perhaps 
better, definite patches of "bioplasm" (Beale), I need hardly say I 
refer now to such as is presented by Ehizopoda only ; and, in referring 
to Ehizopoda, I refer to freshwater Ehizopoda only. "Sarcode" plays 
a part in higher beings subserving to more exalted ends ; but I refer to 
that which meets our attention in the pools, to which my own expe- 
rience is confined. If, indeed, I were acquainted with marine rhizo- 
podous forms, I might possibly be of a different view in respect to them 
from that I feel, as yet, constrained to hold as regards their freshwater 
relatives. Of course, I do not pretend to aver that some of the more 
minute forms we now and then encounter may not be young or transi- 
tory or undeveloped states of certain others ; but t^is would not, I 
imagine, greatly militate against the general correctness of the view for 
which I here contend ; neither do I aver that the various forms we 
from time to time meet with are immutable, or not subject to a certain 
amount of modification. I would only venture to urge that such does 
not appear to be by any means so great as some would hold. I do not 
now dwell on the fact of " zygosis" taking place uniformly like form 
with like form; whatever may be the significance of that phenomenon, 
it is, at least, one which I have noticed myself in numerous forms in 
all the genera, each individual species always "conjugating," so far 
as observation reaches, only with its oivn fellow. 
