OF ANIMALCULES. 3/ 



body, of a grey colour, sufficiently transparent to exhibit 

 its internal contents. When in its greatest contracted 

 state, it appears like a gelatine ball ; this it readily 

 changes, thrusting out branches of different dimensions 

 in various directions. Some of its numerous forms are 

 shewn in the group, figures 8, 9, 10, 11, and 12. When 

 it swallows animalcules which are covered with a crus- 

 taceous shell, as in figures 9, 10, &c. it accommodates 

 its shape to the food. The mouth aperture is situated at 

 the cross in figure 9. Their digestive organs consist of 

 a number of sacs, possessed of considerable dilating 

 power ; and when they are fed on indigo, carmine, or 

 other minutely divided bodies, they remain circular : 

 several of these are shewn in figure 12, and one at the 

 lower part of figure 9. That their stomachs are capable 

 of great expansion, is evident from the large bodies they 

 have swallowed. 



The drawing, figure 9, I took from a specimen found 

 in some water containing duck-weed {lemna major), in the 

 month of March. They are very scarce. MuUer states 

 he only saw them twice. 



Their diameters vary from 1 -600th to 1 -300th of an 

 inch. Figures 10, 11, and 12, represent the same crea- 

 ture magnified 380 times ; and the long animalcules 

 within them are species of the Bacillaria, which it has 

 seized and eaten : they serve to exhibit the wonderful 

 dilatation of their stomachs. 



23. Proteus tenax. The tenaceous Proteus.— This 

 animalcule, like the former, is gelatinous, and changes 



