200 DESCEiPTioN OF [PoJi/ffash'Ica. 



at the pleasure of the Arnceha ; to be presently re-closed, and to dis- 

 appear, whilst that the stomachs themselves, devoid of any proper 

 membrane, are hollowed out indifferently here and there, according 

 to the requirements of the animal, to disappear after the same 

 fashion ; in this case only the words employed would differ, the 

 explanation of the phenomena would remain as I have given it." 



" Of other corpuscles or granules contained in the substance of 

 the Amoebm, some, of extreme tenuity, and irregular, appear to differ 

 from the general gelatinous substance only in density, and I am in- 

 duced to consider them a product of secretion rather than ova. They 

 move about and appear to flow along with the glutinous mass in the 

 expansions pushed out by the animalcule ; they, in this way, aid 

 the observer in detecting the very slow movements of the Amoehce. 

 The remaining sort of granules which, on account of their unifoiTQity, 

 ought, with better reason, to be looked upon as ova, are chiefly 

 observed in the large Amosbm, in which they are seen to move hither 

 and thither, according to the position of the expansions thrust out, 

 into which, indeed, they advance to a greater or less extent. But 

 these ovoid bodies appear to me too consistent and too homogenous to 

 be ova, they refract light, indeed, as strongly as starch granules." In 

 fine — " I am disposed to regard most of the internal granid.es of 

 Amcehcc as foreign to theii' organization." 



"The Amccha, once developed, may doubtless multiply by spon- 

 taneous fission, or by the tlirowing off of a lobe which immediately 

 commences an independent existence. The only experiment I have 

 tried on this point in a large Amoeba, has convinced me that, by the 

 tearing or section of the mass, no escape of the internal glutinous matter, 

 or of the contained granides occurs, but that each segment contracts on 

 itself, and continues to live. In this may be found evidence of the 

 non-existence of an integument." 



" Ehrenb erg attributes to the Amcehce a resistant, contractile, and 

 very clastic integument, and he explains the production of the 

 variable expansions on the supposition that the integument becoming 

 relaxed at some one part of its surface, at the will of the animal, 

 there results therefrom at such spot, a sort of hernia, all the rest of 

 the integument, by virtue of its contractility, compressing the viscera 

 and internal organs into the dilated portion of the integument." 



