216 
NOTES AND MEMORANDA. 
projected a minute bud, which gradually extended into a tortuous tube, 
proving the supposed Infusorium to be a zoospore. It was finally 
abandoned by the Heliozoon, apparently as if it had been determined 
not to be its proper food. 
On the Feeding of Dinamoeha. — These curious amoeboid animals 
take their food at what may be considered the posterior part of the 
body, and one instance, observed by Professor Leidy, appeared to him 
to be particularly interesting, and was related as follows : — Seeing a 
specimen of Dinamoeha with its left side in contact with a filament 
of the Alga Bambusina Brehissonii, he was led to watch it. On closer 
examination it proved that the Alga entered to the left of the tail, 
and extended through the body, causing a slight bulge of the ectosarc 
by its other end to the left of the head. The Dinamoeha became 
slightly elongated, and the Alga sunk more inwardly from behind. 
The former moved with an inclination to the right, causing the Alga 
to assume an oblique position from left to right. The anterior end 
of the Alga suddenly protruded from the body of the animal, so that 
this appeared to be pierced by it. In this condition the Alga entered 
the Dinamoeha to the left of the tail and protruded at the right of the 
head. Gradually the Alga was made to assume a transverse position. 
The right extremity of the Alga now became depressed and the left 
elevated, so that the Alga assumed nearly its original position, in 
which it appeared to perforate the left border of the animal obliquely 
from the tail end. It gradually acquired a central position, pene- 
trating the animal from tail to head. The Dinamoeha now elongated 
at both ends a third greater than its former length, extending in a 
fusiform manner upon the Alga. The animal next doubled upon 
itself, so that both ends of the Alga approached in front and pro- 
truded side by side from the head. One extremity of the Alga then 
sank within the Dinamoeha, and subsequently the other extremity, so 
that the filament about three times the length of the animal became 
coiled up within it. 
The observation of swallowing the Bamhusina was made in the 
afternoon. In the evening, several hours after the first observation, 
on looking at the Dinamoeha which had been preserved in an animal- 
cula cage, it was observed sitting as it were on a large filament of the 
Alga Didymoprium Grevillii. The posterior end of the animal extended 
as a cylindrical expansion along the Alga to a greater length than the 
breadth of the body of the Dinamoeha, and so closely clasped it as to 
contract the gelatinous envelope of the Alga to little more than the 
thickness of the green cells. After some time the Alga suddenly 
broke, and the two portions were gradually bent backwards, and made 
slowly to approach so as to become parallel with each other. One of 
the pieces was then drawn within the animal a convenient length, 
broken off and completely swallowed, and this was followed by a 
similar movement of the other piece. Shortly after the first rupture 
of the Alga, when the two portions projected at an obtuse angle from 
the back portion of the Dinamoeha, the animal contracted in length 
and discharged from the right side a mass of bodies which consisted 
