68 VIGNETTES FROM INVISIBLE LIFE. 



operation of self -division has to be performed. 

 This division is either oblique or longitudinal, and 

 must embrace portions of the band -like nucleus 

 with which they are endowed, and which, as in the 

 AiiKL'ba, seems to embody the prime essentials of 

 life. They have also a large contractile vesicle, 

 which opens and shuts with regular pulsations. 

 Around the crown, or expanded trumpet-formed 

 head, the cilia appendages are longer than else- 

 where, and are wreathed or coiled spirally around 

 it, forming a very beautiful outline. A vascular 

 canal traverses this coiled expansion, and with the 

 long fringing cilia extends down one side the body 

 in a gradually diminishing channel. Occasionally 

 one gets a glimpse right down the widely expanded 

 gullet, and observes the food passing into the 

 several sacs or cavities which line the intestinal 

 canal, and which were at one time considered to be 

 so many stomachs ; and accordingly the Stentors, 

 along with many other similar organisms, were 

 classed as Poly gastric, or many -stomached animals. 

 The lowest of mankind who live to eat are 

 matched by the simplest forms of animal life ; the 

 difference being that whereas in the former a certain 



