33 
the formation of sporules had been observed. The homo- 
geneous plasma body of this species lives in decaying 
Nitellae, and resembles a small Actinophrys, or a small 
Amoeba porrecta, without nucleus, and without contractile 
vesicles. When it assumes the stationary condition, it con- 
tracts itself into a roundish plasma body, which then be- 
comes surrounded with a membrane (encysted). Then the 
body breaks up into a great number of homogeneous sporules, 
which are spindle-shaped and very contractile, and move 
about with a serpentine motion, like an Anguillula, by 
means of one or two rather long cilia. Several sporules 
often adhere (by growing together), and form a plasmodium, 
which, after taking nourishment, returns to the stationary 
condition (Cienkowski, 1. c. p. 213, tab. xii, figs. 1 — 5.) 
The genus Vampyrella does not reproduce itself by sporules, 
but by two or four actinophrys-like buds. The homoge- 
neous plasma body is distinguished by its brick-red colour. 
Cienkowski defines three different species of this genus. 
Vampyrella spirogyree (1. c. figs. 44 — 56) forms, in the 
stationary condition, globular bladders, whose thin membrane 
encloses a homogeneous red plasma body. This separates, 
by division, first into two, then into four germs, which 
break through the outer envelope, and then move about like 
red Amoebae, with pointed processes of very various form. 
These germs bore through the cell-walls of the Spirogyra, 
with their pointed pseudopods, whereupon they draw out 
the plasmic contents, and absorb them into themselves. 
The green contents of the former receive, by digestion, a 
red colour. In the same way Vampyrella pendula (1. c. p. 
221, figs. 57 — 63) bores into the cells of other algae 
((Edogonise, Bulbochaetae), and sucks out their plasma. It 
is distinguished by a thread-like process, which proceeds 
from the plasma body of the pear-shaped cyst, through its 
pointed stem to the base, and by the want of granular 
currents in the actinophrys-like pseudopods. Vampyrella 
vorax, a third species, lives, on the contrary, on Diatomaceae, 
Euglenae, and Uesmidiaceae, which its formless plasma body 
envelopes, and then forms cysts of very various form and 
size (1. c. p. 223, figs. 64 — 73). 
Finally, in my ‘General Morphology’ (vol. i, p. 133) 
I have described a small Amoeba- like Monera, under the 
name of Protamoeba primitiva, which is distinguished from 
the previously mentioned Monadinoe of Cienkowski, by re- 
producing itself by fission alone, without previously passing 
into a stationary condition, or encysting itself. In this re- 
spect it resembles Protogenes primordialis, from which, how- 
VOL. IX. NEW SER. 
c 
