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the freshwater Rhizopods, are not yellow, the one varietyHs 
not the true homologue of the other ; or unless he really adopts 
the almost ludicrous view enunciated by Cienkowski that the 
“ yellow cells ” of the Radiolaria are “parasites .” 
But the climax has yet to come. It has been already stated 
that, according to Mr. Mivart’s resume , “ the central nucleated 
portion of the Badiolarian sarcode, and the peripheral portion 
which almost always contains yellow cells , are separated by a 
porous membrane called the 6 capsule ’ and that he quotes 
Sir Wyville Thomson’s opinion that this “ capsule ” is frequently 
altogether absent. Here are Sir Wyville’s own words : “ In 
many Badiolarians, and especially in some very peculiar com- 
pound forms, a spherical internal chamber called the “ central 
capsule,” whose functions we do not fully understand, is very 
prominent. This capsule is however absent , or at all events 
exists in a very modified form in the more typical groups .” 
Had Sir Wyville Thomson particularized but one step further, 
he would probably have announced that, as always consistently 
urged by me, one most important family of the Radiolaria, as 
constituted by Haeckel, and adopted by Sir Wyville Thomson 
and others on Haeckel’s authority which in turn probably rested 
on Johannes Muller’s, is pre-eminently the typical one which 
possesses no encapsuled nucleus, or (to use the new designation) 
no “central capsule”; and that, if the classification of the 
Rhizopods is to be based as far as practicable on the physiologi- 
cal advances observable in the sarcode bodies of the animal, the 
absence of this “ capsule ” at once ratifies my conclusion that 
the place of the Polycystina is essentially alongside of the 
Foraminifera in the lowest Rhizopodal Order, and not with the 
so-termed Radiolarians in the second or higher Order. 
But how does Mr. Mivart meet this significant, though, as 
already pointed out, by no means novel discovery of Sir Wyville 
Thomson’s — a discovery, be it observed, upon the correctness or 
incorrectness of which the question of the propriety of associ- 
ating the Polycystina with the families of the second Order of 
the Rhizopods was fifteen years ago shown by me to depend ? * 
Is it by adducing good evidence of its error? Or by admitting 
that, if not an error, the entire fabric of the Radiolaria , as a 
whole, is unsound ? Or by inserting in his resume of all pre- 
vious researches on the subject, that at least one writer on the 
oceanic and freshwater Protozoa , not only published the bare 
fact mentioned by Sir Wyville Thomson, but produced ample 
evidence in support of it ? No ! But by appending in a foot- 
note the following singular commentary : — “ If Sir Wyville 
* In the very paper on the Polycystina which Mr. Mivart notices in his 
list. 
