LIVING MATTE It, 59 



in another. Although the actual form of these 

 projections does not differ \ery much, yet, by their 

 appearing at different places, they cause the whole 

 body to change its shape so constantly as to gain 

 for it the name of the Proteus animalcule. By 

 this method of projection it not only moves from 

 place to place, but also takes up the food it re- 

 quires. We may say truly that it makes a foot 

 or a hand as often as it requires either, whether to 

 feed or move. As to its feeding, you will see one 

 of these finger-like processes come in contact with 

 something suitable to its sustenance ; when it will 

 quietly roll over it, and so [absorb or draw it into 

 its own substance and digest it. It also sometimes 

 undesignedly multiplies itself by this means. 

 Thus a finger or a lobe is thrown out too far for its 

 owner to draw it back again. In this condition the 

 lobj acquires a thickening and widening at its 

 extreme end ; and the effort of the parent body 

 to draw it in produces such an attenuation of its 

 intermediate substance that it ends by being de- 

 tached from it altogether, and so a new Amoeba is 

 formed. As a rule, however, this process of multi- 

 plication by fission or self -division, so common in 



