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pseudopodia, causes the spicula to assume a position with 
their length lying in the direction of the very gentle force 
produced by their gradual elongation. 
I should mention that this is a very fragile and, during 
manipulation, easily distorted organism ; under even a slight 
pressure the outline of the inner halls gets lost or even 
broken, and the chlorophyll-granules, outer stratum, spicula 
and all, become confused into one indistinguishable mass; 
it therefore requires some care to place one of these under 
the microscope for due examination, and it should be guarded 
from too great pressure, and allowed to remain on the slide 
for a little to enable it to recover the shock sustained by its 
removal from the water ; and often one finds, with all care, 
that a number of the spicula will be shed, without, how- 
ever, otherwise injuring the specimen. 
The spicula of this rhizopod are not exactly either fusi- 
form or cylindrical, but rather seem to present one side more 
curved than the other. They are not, however, at all falcate, 
but straight and pointed at each end; yet in conveying an 
idea of their shape it may possibly assist some to say they 
present an outline somewhat like the straight cells of the 
minute alga, Ankistrodesmus falcatus. They do not seem 
at all to be hollow, thus unlike the “ spines” of Acaniho- 
cystis turfacea, and they resist the action of strong acid. 
The pseudopodia, on the most careful scrutiny, do not, at 
least to my eyes, show any trace of a current ; they are 
colourless and rigid, never coalescing one with another. 
The chlorophyll-granules in some specimens I have examined 
have shown very much of a starchy appearance ; I regret 
that I have not yet made the experiment of adding sulphuric 
acid and iodine. 
From finding examples with one hollow-globular, central 
mass only, though uncommonly, and others with various, up 
to considerable numbers, it is readily conceivable that these 
must increase in number, and the group thus enlarge in size, 
by the repeated division of the central balls. And, in fact, 
I have taken specimens in which some of these balls were 
still held together by broad sarcode processes or by a single 
narrow isthmus-like connection, some of the chlorophyll- 
granules occupying the space intervening ; sometimes these 
families themselves cohere into compound clusters, seemingly 
associated by a union of the pseudopodia, thus forming com- 
paratively large groups ; perhaps, rather, this may be the 
result of a separation of the larger groups into smaller, each 
retaining a share of the large balls and of the outer investing 
stratum, with its spicula. Except when so injured by pres- 
