12 KHIZOPODA. 



resembling those represented in our engraving 

 (Fig. 2, 5), which must have lived for ages in some 

 quiet lake, whose w^aters covered the vast area where 

 they are found, and as they perished, sinking to the 

 bottom, left their shells records of their history. 



CHAPTER II. 



Rhizopoda* {Boot-footed animalcules). 



To return to our magnified drop of water. We have 

 already described the Amoeba cliffluens'\ (Fig. 2, e), as 

 resembling a film of ever-changing cloud, so soft in its 

 consistence that it is but a little removed from fluidity. 

 It is not firm enough even to be called jelly : it may 

 almost be compared to a drop of gum-water or mucus, 

 and yet it is endowed with very extraordinary capa- 

 bilities. It evidently has a voluntary power of moving 

 from place to place, and its mode of doing so is not 

 inaptly expressed by the epithet " diffluens," floiving- 

 away, by which it is distinguished. On first perceiving 

 one of these creatures under the field of the micro- 

 scope, it will be found perhaps contracted into a 

 shapeless mass resembling a small patch of mucilage, 

 and offering little to attract attention; while we 

 watch it, however, it begins to move, spreads out 

 into a shape something like that represented in our 

 figure, and we are almost tempted to make a drawing 

 of so strange a creature. Meanwhile, it flows into 

 another outline, spreading like water spilled upon a 

 greasy board, and so it glides from place to place, 

 and form to form. This microscopic film is hungry too, 

 and eats ; but having neither mouth nor stomach, it 

 is not at first easy to conjecture how such a feat can 

 be accomplished. Its body is generally seen to con- 

 tain the shells of Naviculse (Fig 4), and other similar 



* f)i^a, rhiza, a root : ttovj, noShs, pons, podos, a foot, 

 a^oi^^, i^moibe, change. 



