98 THE PSYCHIC LIFE 



since this animalcule has a dense ectoplasm, and, 

 when severed, this layer, which is not very retractile, 

 does not grow together again and close the wound; 

 the sides remain separated, the water comes in con- 

 tact with the endoplasm, which swells, bulges out, and 

 runs from the wound; the animal may thus void itself 

 completely, dying of diffluence. It occasionally hap- 

 pens that the animal voids itself only in part, and that 

 the nucleus escapes with a small piece of the proto- 

 plasm. Then, if the wound draws together, we get a 

 fragment that has thrown out the nucleus by its own 

 action. 



We shall not speak of the actions of the fragment 

 containing nuclear substance; they are the same as 

 observed in the case of Stentors: the fragment 

 rapidly reconstructs itself and re-forms a complete 

 animal. 



Let us mark more closely the fragment without nu- 

 cleus. Such fragments continue to live for some 

 time; they have been kept alive as long as eight days; 

 but they do not reconstruct themselves; they do not 

 even assume a regular form; the part of the body fac- 

 ing the section retains its obliquity of truncation. At 

 the start, for the first few days, the movements con- 

 tinue; a curious circumstance connected therewith is, 

 that the fragments continue to move in the direction 

 in which they would have moved if they were placed 

 together to form a complete individual. The vibratile 

 cilia are in no wise altered; they shake with the same 

 animation as before. Only the movements of the an- 

 imal are a trifle irregular; but they exhibit the same 

 marks of volition as seen in normal individuals. The 

 vesicle continues to contract. 



The power to seize food is also retained when the 



