10 



ON CLASSIFICATION. 



is indicated in the table as the Ehizopoda. I have put a 

 query against it, as I shall have to return to it as another of 

 those respecting which our knowledge is incomplete. And at 

 this moment I merely direct attention to the salient and cha- 

 racteristic features of the whole group (Fig. 2). 



Fig. 2. 





Fig. 2. — A, B, Free and encysted conditions of an Amceba (after Auerbach) ; E, a Fora- 

 minifer (Rotalia) with extended pseudopodia ; D, its shell in section (after Schulze). 



It seems difficult to imagine a stage of organization lower 

 than that of Gregarinicla, and yet many of the Bhizopoda are 

 still simpler. Nor is there any group of the animal kingdom 

 which more admirably illustrates a very well-founded doctrine, 

 and one which was often advocated by Hunter himself, that life 

 is the cause and not the consequence of organization ; for, in 

 these lowest forms of animal life, there is absolutely nothing- 

 worthy of the name of organization to be discovered by the micro- 

 scopist, though assisted by the beautiful instruments that are 

 now constructed. In the substance of many of these creatures, 

 nothing is to be discerned but a mass of jelly, which might be 

 represented by a little particle of thin glue Nut that it corre- 



