78. _The Endoplasm of the Actipylea._--The intracapsular protoplasm of the ACANTHARIA or ACTIPYLEA is often distinguished by a partial or complete radial arrangement like that of the PERIPYLEA, but differing in the number, size, form, and distribution of the radial portions into which the endoplasm is differentiated. For since the pores of the capsule membrane are distributed at equal distances all over the surface in the SPUMELLARIA, whilst in the ACANTHARIA they are arranged in definite groups, and since the number and arrangement of the pores has a direct influence upon the internal currents of the endoplasm, it follows that the radial structure in the latter legion must be very different from that in the former. In addition to this there must not be forgotten the important influence which the early centrogenous formation of the skeletal rods exercises upon the disposition and growth of the intracapsular structures. Hence the endoplasm of the ACANTHARIA does not separate into innumerable thin, closely packed radial wedges or cortical radial rods, but into a small number of large pyramidal portions between which run the radially disposed heterogeneous portions of the contents of the capsule, viz., the radial bars of acanthin and the peculiar intracapsular "axial threads." As a direct consequence of the regular disposition of these heterogeneous radial portions, which is often characteristic of the various families of the ACANTHARIA, a corresponding differentiation of the endoplasm is brought about; it divides into a number of conical or pyramidal portions (radial pyramids), whose bases rest upon the capsule-membrane and whose apices are directed towards the centre of {xlviii}the capsule (the central star of the skeleton). These radial pyramids are, however, but rarely visible, being usually more or less concealed by a dark pigment. The differentiations of the endoplasm in the central capsule of the ACTIPYLEA have been but little investigated, but they appear to vary somewhat in the different groups of this legion. In all ACANTHARIA in which the twenty radial bars are regularly arranged according to the Müllerian law (see p. 717) and in which axial threads constant in number and disposition run between them from the central star to the capsule-membrane, it obviously follows that the endoplasm must be divided into more or less distinct radial pyramids, and this must the case whether these take the form of continuous tracts or of actually separable portions. The regular polygonal figures, often seen on the surface of the central capsule (with special distinctness in _Acanthometron elasticum_ and _Acanthometron pellucidum_) separated by a network of granular threads, are the bases of such radial pyramids (see Hertwig, L. N. 43, p. 12, Taf. i. figs. 1-7).