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baffled attempts to refer to any particular type. It formed a very 
minute globular body, semi-pellucid, and of a bluish hue, having 
immersed therein an amber-coloured globule mostly of considerable 
brilliancy, and occupying a large proportion of the mass of the 
little sphere. The whole was surrounded by a thick covering, 
loosely and irregularly clustered around it, of a heterogeneous 
variety of fragments and shreds of other organic bodies, such as 
splinters of diatoms, bits of protococcoids and confervoids, and 
various fibrous-looking elements. There were occasionally two, 
and Mr. Archer had once seen three, of these globular bodies so 
surrounded by this outer cluster of foreign fragments, which 
mostly assumed an elliptic but irregularly margined general 
outline round the globular central body. There was an appre- 
ciable interval between the latter and the outer cluster. Now, 
op’s description of the central body, apart from its surroundings, 
eamld call to mind (as undoubtedly the examples themselves did) 
sluch of the appearance of Dr. Barker’s rbizopod, Diplophrys 
Archeri (see “ Dublin Microscopical Club Minutes,” 19th Dec., 
1867). But Mr. Archer had looked in vain over many specimens 
of the organism now exhibited for any indication of pseudopodia, 
nor, indeed, did any kind of locomotive organ present itself. 
Still, if one could imagine Diplophrys, not only with its pseudo- 
podia fully retracted, in which condition it is sometimes met 
with, but also loosely surrounded in some manner by an aggre- 
gation of minute and heterogeneous fragments, it is quite true we 
should have an object not distinguishable from that now drawn 
attention to by Mr. Archer. There was nothing further, however, 
to prove that this was a state of Diplophrys, which is rare, and 
never met with in the numbers in which these were present. It 
would seem clear, however, that this must, some time or other, 
have a non-quiescent state, in which it must be able, in travelling, 
to discover and select the various fragments, loosely assorted, 
within which it ensconces, though does not hide, itself, for the 
pellucid character of the debris employed enables one readily to 
see the globular body inside, with its amber spot, often looking 
under a peculiar illumination and focus like a bright flame 
within. Thus, whilst unable to form any accurate idea as to the 
true nature of this curious little production, Mr. Archer thought 
that even its present total inexplicability would lend it a certain 
amount of interest. 
Boyal Microscopical Society. 
April 14 th, 1869. 
The President (the Rev. J. B. Reade) in the chair. 
A paper on “ Protoplasm and Living Matter ” was read by Dr. 
Lionel Beale. We have commented on this in another part of the 
Journal. A discussion followed, in which the question of vitality 
