41 
were not different from those of the red balls which were 
previously described, and showed precisely the same re- 
actions. The appearance of currents of the sarcode, or of 
the free plasma (protoplasma), particularly as they manifest 
themselves in the true Rhizopoda (Acyttaria and lladio- 
laria), have been for the last thirty-three years so carefully 
examined and so universally known, that it would be super- 
fluous to re-describe it in detail in the organism before us. 
Dujardin 1 and Max Scliultze 2 in the Polythalamia, Clapa- 
rede and Lachtnann in Actinophrys, Acanthometra and 
Lieberkuhnia, 3 Johannes Muller, 4 and myself 5 in the Radi- 
olaria, De Baxy, 6 and Cienkowski 7 in the Myxomycetee, 
have so consistently described and so fully figured this 
very interesting and important phenomena, that there can 
be no longer any doubt of its real existence and frequent 
occurrence. However, since 1862 Reichert has attempted 
in numerous papers to show its impossibility, and that 
the discoveries and observations of all the above-mentioned 
naturalists were false, because inconsistent with his dogmatic 
vitalistic ideas of nature. 1 have already shown in my 
papers on the sarcode body of the Rhizopoda the entire 
groundlessness and perversity of Reichert’s assertions. I 
should not have alluded to the subject here if Reichert had 
not, in a recently published large treatise, himself accepted 
the plasma theory' of the sarcode which he had attacked, and 
attempted so to misrepresent the matter, that he seems to 
represent himself as the special discoverer of the pheno- 
menon which he formerly declared to be impossible, but 
which was in fact long ago fully demonstrated. The follow- 
ing (III) portion of my treatise will discuss this matter more 
particularly. 
The orange-coloured Rhizopod-like organism which I 
foimd on the Spirula shell, and which I propose to desig- 
nate Protomyxa aurantiaca , shows the phenomenon of the 
sarcode current in the most remarkable manner. Its red- 
dish-yellow sarcode is to a considerable extent semiliquid, 
somewhat as in Thalassicola among the Radiolaria, in Gro- 
1 Dujardin, “Observations nouvelles, &c. ‘ Annales des Sciences Nat.,’ 
1835, 2 ser., tom. iii., p. 112, et seq. 
2 Max Schultze, 1. c., p. 16, et seq. 
3 Claparede et Lachmann, 1. c., vol. i, p. 416 and 464. 
4 Johannes Muller, “ Ueber die Thalassicollen, Poly cyst inen und Acantho- 
metren ‘ Abliandl. der Berlin Akad,’ 1858, p. 3, et seq. 
s Ernst Haeckel, ‘Die Radiolarien,’ pp. 89 — 126 and pp. 127 — 159. 
6 De Bary, “ Die Mycetozoen ‘ Zeitschrift fur wissensch. Zool.,’ 1860, 
vol. x, p. 88, et seq. 
7 Cienkowski, “ Zur Entwickelungsgeschichte der Myxomyceten” ; 
“Pricgskeiins Jahrbiicker fiir wissensch. Botanik,’ iii, p. 325, et seq. 
