464 PROCEEDINGS : BOSTON SOCIETY NATURAL HISTORY. 
severed, when for some unexplained reason the two portions become 
aojain united into one mass. 
® * 
This type of vegetative division, the usual one observed, unlike 
the conditions described by Lister in the myxamoebae and swarm 
cells of the Myxomycetes, is not accompanied in the present group, 
so far as I have been able to determine, by an indirect division of 
the nuclear bodies. Although certain of the figures of these bodies 
may resemble somewhat a nuclear spindle, the apj)earance is due 
rather to the presence of several granules at the periphery of a 
single vacuole. The granules, moreover, are evidently connected 
by some invisible achromatic substance, since they move together, 
always maintaining the same relative position during the internal 
protoplasmic movements, and several times I have seen instances 
which led me to believe that they were undergoing fragmentation 
(pl.6,%V5|. 
It will be seen by a comparison with the figures of the myxam¬ 
oebae of Guttulinopsis (pi. 5, figs. 17, 18), that the nuclear condi¬ 
tions present in the single individuals and also in those which are 
undergoing division, appear to be somewhat similar to those 
described above for Dictyostelium and Polysphondylium. 
It is thus evident that the cytological aspects of the subject are 
left in great uncertainty as well on account of the minute size of 
the organisms and apparently primitive nuclear conditions which 
they present, as from the fact that their character and mode of life 
render a satisfactory application of modern methods of technique 
a matter of the greatest difficulty. It may be mentioned, however, 
that on the zoological side at least, the karyology of amoeboid 
organisms seems to rest on equally uncertain foundations. 
Appropriation of food hy myxamoebae .— It is well known that 
the true Amoebae ingest certain foreign particles, such as minute 
animals or plants, and that these are enclosed in food vacuoles, 
there slowly digested, and finally assimilated. Lister (’90a, ’90b) has 
observed also that the swarm spores of Chondrioderma and of other 
Myxomycetes may ingest bacteria and various other solid bodies 
and appropriate the digested portion. The same observer (’88) as 
well as other investigators (Krukenberg, ’78; Celakovsky, ’92; 
Miller, ’98) have further studied the ingestion of solid food particles 
by the plasmodium of various Myxomycetes, and find that, occa¬ 
sionally, ingested substances may be digested and assimilated. De 
