Eugeniacrinus (ujeniakrinus)

[NL. (reduced from Eugenia crinites ), most part green, though sometimes red) and peculiar en dogenous multiplication (noted below) are highly charac free-swimming or sedentary, naked or loricate, and solitary or colonial. The flagellum is single and terminal; the highly refractive particles of apparently amylaceous suboral aperture is distinct; the endoplasm often contains stance; one or more eye-like pigment-specks are often developed at the anterior end; and the contractile vacuole and the endoplast are conspicuous, the former usually lo cated close to the anterior border. The euglenids multiply both by longitudinal and transverse fi ion, by the subdivision of the body-substance into sporular elements, and by the development of independent germinal bodies out of the substance of the endoplast. The sporulation, or breaking up of the colored endoplasm, usually consequent upon a proce of encystment, results in the formation of germs variable in number and of irregular contour, released as small green amæbiforms, without trace of the flagellum, oral aperture, or pigment-spot, which are subsequently acquired. The fusiform zooids resulting from the sporulation of the endoplasm of motile euglenids, on the contrary, appear to be usually furnished with a flagellum and an eye-speck. Another form of encystment, not connected with reproduction, occurs in euglenids when the water dries up in the ponds or ditches where they live. The animalcules become spherical and quiescent, develop a gelatinous covering which indurates, and in this condition have been mistaken for green algals. These several changes of the animalcule give rise to the term euglenoid, applied to other organisms, as gregarines, which present similar conditions of encystment and sporulation. According to Saville Kent, the genera composing the famon. ily as at present recognized are Euglena, Amblyophis, Phacus, Chloropeltis, Trachelomonas, Rhaphidomonas, Cœlomonas, Ascoglena, and Colacium. Nearly all occur in fresh water, especially when stagnant, though a few are found in brackish water. They may be single or in small groups, or may form very extensive colonies. Euglenina (ü-glē-ni'nä), n. pl. [ The euglenoid is always a single contractile sac, with one ma of medullary substance, in which floats the large vesicular transparent nucleus. E. R. Lankester, Encyc. Brit., XIX. 853.