8 



them branched, and giving off twigs in their turn. These 

 would represent different slight modifications or varieties, 

 most of which have died out. They would have added 

 greatly to the complication of the table, and can readily be 

 imagined, therefore they have been omitted. 



Fig. 2. Protomyxa aurantiaca, Haeckel, A. The Plasmodium stage. B. The 

 encysted condition. C. The protoplasm inside the cyst breaking up into 

 mastigopods. D. The mastigopods, set free by the rupture of the cyst, becoming 

 myxopods, and then uniting to form small Plasmodia. 



Protomyxa (fig. 2) is decidedly above Protamoeba and 

 others of the Monera, and has a complicated and very 

 instructive life-history,* the main points of which are that a 

 myxopod stage (the plasmodium, fig. 2, A) passes into an 

 encysted condition (fig. 2, B), and then breaks up into a 

 number of mastigopods (fig. 2, C), each of which after 

 escaping from the cyst becomes a myxopod (fig. 2, D). 



* See Haeckel, Studien iiher Moneren; or, Huxley's Invertebrata, p. 81. 



