INFUSORIAL ANIMALS. 59 
One of the most surprising phenomena which we meet with 
in the study of infusoria is their disorganisation by azfluence. This 
decomposition is either entire or partial. Miiller has seen a 
kalpode (Kolpoda meleagris) melt away until scarcely ~,th of his 
body remained; the rest continuing to swim about as if nothing had 
happened. The infusoria present still another kind of decompo- 
sition. If we approach the drop of water in which the animalcule 
lives with the barb of ‘a feather wet with ammonia, the animal 
ceases its swimming motion instantly, although its cilia still vibrate 
rapidly. Suddenly, at some point of its circumference, a notch is 
formed which increases more and more until the whole animal is 
dissolved. If, while this process be going on, a drop of pure water 
be added, the decomposition is at once arrested, and that which 
remains of the animalcule begins to move and swim as if the 
ammonia had never been in its neighbourhood, and had not dis- 
soived the greater part of its substance. 
