Observations on British Zoophytes and Protozoa. 165 
commence, and become constantly more numerous. The 
branches, after issuing or becoming free, easily reach their 
neighbouring filaments, apply themselves to these, and then 
appear as anastomoses. By the multiplication of such ap- 
parent anastomoses those reticulated figures are produced 
which are known under the name of the Sarcode net. At 
the same time bridge-like unions, and membrane-like struc- 
tures, between the filaments become visible." "Favourable 
conditions for the multiplicity of forms, and for their ready 
and often imperceptible change, are also furnished by the 
extraordinary number of the filaments and their flexibility." 
And he further states, that " the appearance produced by 
these readily moveable parts in the protean system of fila- 
ments, as if a moveable substance assumed any form or 
spread and poured itself into any shape, is an illusion which 
is set up especially by the circumstance that individual 
minute parts, which are readily displaceable throughout, 
can never be distinguished at their points of contact." 
No doubt the theory of Eeichert is exceedingly ingenious 
and plausible, but it appears to me to be especially open to 
two objections. Ist^ If the infinitely fine fibres of Eeichert 
had such an amount of cohesion as to enable them to form 
bundles and membranes of apparently homogeneous struc- 
ture, such an amount of cohesion would prevent the rapid 
motion of the fibres on each other in opposite directions. 
^dly, We see the same fibrous arrangement of the protoplasm 
in the interior of the vegetable and animal cell. In the 
cell of Anacharis, for instance, when the circulation has been 
arrested, we frequently observe the protoplasm distributed 
as a more or less perfect mesh-w^ork over the whole cell. 
After a time of rest, movements commence in the threads in 
no respect differing from those of the pseudopodia of the 
rhizopod, and the protoplasm creeps to the borders of the 
cell where the circulation commences. So in the cells of 
the tentacles of Coryne, the protoplasm assumes a similar 
thread-like and reticulated arrangement ; in fact, that each 
cell contains an imprisoned rhizopod. Perhaps the Society 
may remember that I sometime ago showed a true rhizopodic 
structure to exist in the pigment corpuscle of the fish, which 
VOL. nr. X 
