Page:EB1911 - Volume 22.djvu/486

Rh PROTEOMYXA, a name given by E. Ray Lankester (Ency. Brit., 9th ed., 1885, art. “,”) to a group of Protozoa Sarcodina. The group was really recognized as distinct by Cienkowski and by Zopf, receiving the name of Monadinea from the former; but as this name had been usually applied to Flagellates and even the zoospores are not always provided with flagella, Lankester's name has become more suitable, and has been adopted by Delage and Hérouard (1896) and by Hartog (1906). The group entered to a considerable extent into the

“Monera” of Haeckel, supposed (erroneously in most if not all species adequately studied) to possess no nucleus in the protoplasm. The following are the characteristics of the group. Pseudopods usually granular, fine flexible, tapering generally, not freely branching; reproducing sometimes by simple fission, but more frequently by multiple fission in a brood-cyst whose walls may be multiple. Plasmodium formation occasional, but never leading to the formation of a massive fructification: other syngamic processes unknown, and probably non-existent. Encystment, or at least a resting stage at full growth, is very characteristic, and frequently an excretion of granules takes place into the first-formed cyst, whereupon a second inner cyst is formed which may be followed by a third. These brood-cysts, in which multiple fission takes place, may be of two kinds, ordinary and resting, the latter being distinguished by a firm, and usually ornamented and cuticularized cell-wall, and only producing its zoo spores after an interval. Besides, an individual at any age may under unfavourable conditions surround itself with a “hypnocyst,” to pass the time until matters are more suitable to active life, when it emerges unchanged.

From the initial character of the brood-cell on leaving the sporocyst the dividing character of the two orders is taken.

1. Zoosporeae, Zopf. The brood-cells leave the cyst as “Monads” (with one or two flagella). Genera: Pseudospora, Cienk.; Protomonas Cienk.; Diplophysalis, Zopf.; Gymnococcus, Z.; Aphelidium, Z.; Pseudosporidium, Z.; Plasmodiophora, Woronin; Tetramyxa, Goebel.

2. Azoosporeae, Zopf. Genera: Endyonema, Z.; Vampyrella, Cienk. (figs. 1, 2, 3); Leptophrys, Hertw. and Less.; Bursulla, Sorokin; Protogenes, Haeck.(fig. 8); Archerina, Lank. (figs. 4-7); Serosporidium, L. Pfeiffer; Lymphosporidium, Calkins.

Many of the species are endoparasites in living cells, mostly of Algae or Fungi, but not exclusively. At least two species of Pseudospora have been taken for reproductive stages in the life history of their hosts—whence indeed the generic name. Plasmodiophora brassicae gives rise to the disease known as “Hanburies” or “fingers and toes” in Cruciferae; Lymphosporidium causes a virulent epidemic among the American brook-trout, Salvelinus fontinalis. Archerina boltoni is remarkable for containing a pair of chlorophyll corpuscles in each cell; no nucleus has been made out, but the chlorophyll bodies divide previous to fission. It is a fresh-water form. The cells of this species form loose aggregates or filoplasmodia, like those of Mikrogromia (, q.v.) or Leydenia (, q.v.), &c.

Vampyrella (figs. 1–3) and Enteromyxa also form a compact plasmodium which separates into 1-nucleate cells, which then encyst and divide into a brood of four.

—F. Cienkowski in Archiv für mikroskopische Anatomie (1865); Haeckel, “Die Moneren,” in Jenaische Zeitschr. (1868), vol. iv.; W. Zopf, “ Die Monadineen,” in Schenk's Handbuch der Botanik (1887), vol. iii. pt. ii., and Beiträge zur Physiologie und Morphologie niederer Organismen (1890); Delage and E. Hérouard, Traité de zoologie concrète, vol. i.; La Cellule et les protozoaires (1896); Marcus Hartog, Cambridge Natural History (1906), vol. i.

 PROTESILAUS, in Greek legend, son of Iphiclus, and husband of Laodameia. In command of the Greek contingent from Phylace in Thessaly, he was the first to spring ashore on Trojan soil, although he knew it meant instant death. His wife besought the gods below that he might be permitted to return to earth for the space of three hours. Her prayer was granted, and on the expiration of the time allotted she returned with him to the nether world. According to Hyginus (Fab. 103, 104), Laodameia made a waxen image of her husband. A slave, having detected her in the act of embracing it and supposing it to be a lover, informed her father, who ordered her to burn the image; whereupon she threw herself with it into the flames. In another account (Conon, Narrationes, 13) Protesilaus survived the fall of Troy and carried off Aethilla, the sister of Priam. During a halt on the peninsula of Pallene, Aethilla and the other captive women set fire to the ships. Protesilaus, unable to continue his voyage, remained and built the city of Scione. His tomb and temple were to be seen near Eleus in the Thracian Chersonese. Nymphs had planted elm-trees, facing towards Troy, which withered away as soon as they had grown high enough to see the captured city. Protesilaus was the subject of a tragedy by Euripides, of which some fragments remain.

Iliad, ii. 698; Lucian, Dial mort. xxiii. 1; Ovid, Heroides, xiii.; Philostratus, Heroica, iii. 