THE MICROSCOPE. 113 
inclined to recognize in the cell an entity, which is born, lives, and 
dies, a part of, and contributing to a harmonious whole, and yet 
leading a partly independent existence. 
The time was when the lowest forms of animal life were consid- 
ered as possessing vitality, and motion, the latter entirely unaccoun- 
ted for, except perhaps, as the result of outside stimuli. More care- 
ful observation, by means of the improved instruments and lenses at 
our command, leads to the conclusion that there is something in 
these microscopic creations besides life in the abstract sense,—that a 
psychic influence prompts them in their whirlings and dartings, and 
governs their motions, acting in a manner relatively similar to the 
mental and nervous influences of higher organizations. 
A very pretty illustration of this intelligence in the amab7,— 
the lowest but one in the scale of animal micro-organisms, is noted 
by Romanes in his work on Animal Intelligence. While observing 
some Huglenc, a Mr. Carter noticed a stalked and triangular acineta, 
around which an ameba was creeping and lingering as they do 
when in quest of food. Knowing the antipathy which the ameba, 
like almost every other infusorian, has to the tentacles of the acineta, 
he was greatly surprised to find that the former crept up the stem of 
the latter, wound around its body, and placed itself around the 
ovarian aperture of the acineta. Presently a young acineta was 
born, and was received in the unerring and unrelaxing grasp of the 
amoeba, which immediately descended from the parent and crept off, 
to digest its well-earned meal. 
M. Binet has recently brought out much in regard to the psychic 
life of these micro-organisms, and the student of this subject may 
spend a pleasurable and profitable hour over his recently issued 
work. 
About two years ago Zawarykin of St. Petersburg discovered in 
the subcutaneous connective tissue of a white rat a peculiar spher- 
ical cell. This has since been investigated by Polyakoff, who finds 
it in various portions of the human and animal body, and whose 
investigations go to prove that its function is that of fat-forming. 
The particular point to be noted here is, that these cells, from one 
and one-half to two times the size of a leucocyte, are elastic bodies 
possessed of amceboid movement, and wander in the direction of 
the blood vessels. Here they seize upon the albumenous-food- 
material of the blood, from which they produce a substance which in 
chemical composition is probably closely related to fat, but is not fat, 
but from which at a later period fat is elaborated. 
