A manual of the Infusoria: including a description of all known ...

GENUS LE UCOPHR YS. 587
This form is distinguished from the preceding by its larger size, the greater proportionate
development of the peristome and more elongate and composite character
Stein unites in this species both the Spirostomum ambiguutn and
of the endoplast.
5. virescetis of Perty. The author has obtained this species in great abundance in
pond water with Lemna trisuka near St. Heliers, Jersey, its comrades being
Urocentrum turbo, Parammcium chrysalis, and Spirillum voliitans ; the examples
then collected lived healthily for many weeks within the restricted limits of a widemouthed
bottle. Their long, filiform bodies, which exceed in length the dimensions
of any other Infusorial type, are quite conspicuous to the unassisted eye, and gleam
in the sunlight like golden threads. As shown in the accompanying figures, the
contractile vesicle in this animalcule is of very considerable relative size, its lower
extremity more particularly being often so greatly dilated as to occupy almost the
entire area of the posterior
third of the body.
Stein as
The Spirostomum filum of Claparfede and Lachmann is regarded by
possessing insufficient characters for separate specific diagnosis.
Genus IV. LEUCOPHRYS, Ehrenberg.
Animalcules free-swimming, persistent in form, more or less oval or
confined to
egCT-shaped, the anterior extremity truncate ; pcristome-field
the anterior third of the ventral surface, short, and widely harp-shaped oral
;
fossa continued into the interior of the body as a long, tubular pharynx ;
the outer or left border of the peristome alone bearing the fringe of adoral
cilia, no supplementary undulating membrane ; the peristome-field covered
with short cilia, similar to those which clothe the general surface of the
body ; endoplast band-like ; contractile vesicle and anal aperture posterotcrminal.
Inhabiting fresh water.
Leucophrys patula, Miill. sp. Pl. XXIX. Fig. 18.
Body elongate-oval, compressed, somewhat kidney-shaped, one-half to
twice as long again as broad ; either transparent or coloured deep green
through the enclosure of chlorophyll-granules ;
the two extremities slightly
curved towards the left, the anterior extremity truncate, the right-hand
corner of this frontal region angular, the opposite one rounded ; peristome-
field harp-shaped, equal in length to about one-quarter only of the entire
body ; oral aperture followed by a long tubular pharynx first produced
towards the right and then bent downwards and descending nearly to
the centre of the body ; endoplast band-like, convolute ; contractile vesicle
single, of large size, situated close to the posterior extremity, frequently
exhibiting two lateral prolongations which extend in a canal-like manner
up either side of the body. Length 1-120" to 1-72".
Hab.—Fresh water.
This species, s>Tionymous with the Trichoda patula of O. F. Miiller, and the
Spirostomum vircns and Leucophrys patula of Ehrenberg, has been the subject of
some contention among more modern investigators. Stein, regarding Ehrenberg's
Spirostomum virens as a morphologically distinct type, has conferred upon it the new
generic title of Climacostomum ; that of Leucophrys he retains only for a form which
he affirms to be identical with the Leucophrys patula originally figured by Ehrenberg
in the year 1830* and reproduced in part only in his '
greater work Die Infusions-
* '
Abhand. Bed. Akad.,' S. 42 and 76, Taf. ii., figs. 1-6, 1830.