36 NATURAL HISTORY 



GENUS II. 

 PROTEUS. 



We now arrive at a larger genus of animalcules, whose 

 habits are highly interesting and curious : indeed, there 

 are few in the examination of which 1 have been more 

 delighted. This gratification arises, not so much from 

 any complexity in their organizatioUj which, in compa- 

 rison with the Brafichionus, and some of the Vorticella, 

 is more simple, but from the great power they possess 

 of dilating their bodies ; and their motions being slow, 

 the observer is enabled to examine their changes of 

 form distinctly. 



Their generic character, according to MuUer, is, " that 

 their form is changeable, extending variable feet-like 

 processes at pleasure." This naturalist has only enume- 

 rated two species, to which Schrank has added two 

 others; and Sosano, in the Transactions of the Turin 

 Academy, Vol. xxix., has extended this genus to sixty- 

 nine species. 



22. Proteus diffluens, {Amoeba dijjluens, E.) The melt' 

 ing Proteus. — This changeable animalcule may be said to 

 have no determined form, for it is continually varying 

 its shape under the eye of the observer. It is a very soft 



