134 
parently does not indicate a single simple individual, but a 
colony of Moners. The seventeen separate, star-shaped, and 
radiating Actinophryan-like plasma-bodies are likewise many 
morphological individuals of the first class, and the entire 
plasma-net is, notwithstanding its absolute simplicity, already 
an individual of a higher (second) class. It is, in some 
respects, a colony-forming Actinophrys or Protogenes. 
Morphologically defined wth more strictness, each of the 
seventeen naked homogeneous plasma-stars is a gymnocy- 
tode, and the entire body a very simple individual of the 
second order, or an organ (this expression taken in a purely 
morphological sense, as I have used it in my Tectology). 
As similar colonies of Monera had not been previously 
known, it would have been of great interest to have observed 
the Myxodictyum longer, and especially to have witnessed its 
reproduction, and to have seen if it passed into a state of 
rest, or rather into another organism. Unfortunately, it was 
impossible for me to obtain information about this. But I 
observed at least a change during the few hours in which I 
had the Myxodictyum under notice. 
After I had sketched the drawing of Myxodictyum re- 
produced at fig. 31, and had sufficiently examined the phe- 
nomena of the motions of the sarcode, in order to establish 
their identity with those of the Rhizopoda, I put the glass 
aside to sketch a few Acanthometrae, which I had caught at 
the same time. Three hours later, I placed the watch-glass 
with the Myxodictyum again under the microscope. The 
slimy net still lay, in the previously described form, on the 
surface of the water, and the slow current of the sarcode 
continued moving uninterruptedly. The separate Actino- 
phryan-like bodies had but moved a little further from each 
other, about three or four times their diameter ; the meshes 
of the net appeared larger, and the circumference of the 
whole group, which was formerly nearly circular, w r as now 
more irregularly polygonal, and at the same time somewhat 
lengthened in one direction. On closer examination, I dis- 
covered that there were only fifteen individuals present in the 
net. At first I suspected that, perhaps, the two missing indi- 
viduals had coalesced with two of the remaining ones, and 
were united with them. But it proved, on a thorough 
inspection, that they had separately detached themselves from 
the colony, and now swam isolated at the edge of the watch- 
glass on the surface of the water. Each of the two bodies 
had a nearly circular circumference, from which radiated a 
rich circlet of ramifying and anastomosing pseudopods, like 
an Actinophrys {sol.), without contractile vesicles (fig. 33). 
( To be continued.) 
