1888.] MICROSCOPICAL JOURNAL. 163 



est to the highest is immense, comparable only to a corresponding relation 

 between highest and lowest vertebrates ; hence, for illustration of terms and 

 for convenience of comparison, I have chosen a species near the middle of the 

 series. With this we may hurriedly and easily compare others, higher and 

 lower. 



If to a beaker of clear water a few fragments of hay be added and let stand 

 a few days there may be found in the infusion great numbers of a small ani- 

 mated speck represented by the sketch. A careful study of this object has 

 revealed interesting facts and suggested inquiries not yet fully answered. It 

 is somewhat egg-shaped or globular, quite soft and elastic, with two similar 

 external appendages consisting of two long lash-like fibres. Under the lens 

 the whole organism appears endowed with life. This is attested by its free 

 motion, sensitiveness, and ability to appropriate and change to voluntaiy ac- 

 tivity the energy of organic food. The proper tests prove that its substance 

 is identical with that form of matter evervwhere associated with life and called 

 protoplasm. In fact this animal is little else than this remarkably complex 

 and wonderful substance now universallv recognized as the physical basis of 

 life. 



This minute lump of matter, only about jxrVo ^^ ^^ inch in diameter, is 

 naked protoplasm. True, its outer boundary appears to be somewhat denser 

 than the portion included ; still, it appears that its food ma3^be taken directly 

 through the surface at any place ; there is not a food receiving orifice — a mouth. 

 On examining the globule farther two important bodies attract our attention. 

 First, imbedded in the protoplasm may be seen a globule of protoplasm firmer 

 than the surrounding mass ; this is the nucleus. This element of the proto- 

 zoan body, possessed also by the histogenic cell, has elicited much study and 

 animated discussion. Almost every issue of the microscopical and morpho- 

 logical journals bring to notice accounts of new and many far-reaching dis- 

 coveries regarding it in relation to the career of the cell to which it belongs ; 

 second, within the endoplasm may be seen a clear globule which grows until 

 a certain size is attained, when a sudden collapse occurs and it disappears to 

 again steadily form and disappear as before. The two lashes which arise from 

 the lower anterior part of the body are extensions of the body protoplasm, 

 hence possessing its properties of sensibility and contractility. One of these fla- 

 gella reaches ahead, and by its repeated strokes against the water pulls the body 

 through that medium ; the other is used as a director of its course, or sometimes 

 as an anchor. These few differentiated parts are all that characterize this repre- 

 sentative of one of the great classes of one division of the Protozoa, viz., the 

 Flagellata, the first class of the Infusoria. By variations of these parts and 

 their products arise those characters and differences on which are established 

 scores of genera that are simpler and scores that are more complex. 

 I That these germs teeming in the hay infusion are alive no one questions. 

 j>it why relegate them to the animal kingdom rather than to the vegetable.'' 

 , s no longer difficult to refer any one of the complex or multicellular beings 

 i-/T-ie or the other of these two parallel series. There are no longer serious 

 Y • j^nces of opinion concerning such among the learned, but to satisfactorily 

 Tj . , unicellular forms,placing this one among Protozoa, and that one among 

 , Miyta, is another matter^one which the present state of knowledge does 

 1 . lie men to agree upon. The distinguished biologist, Ernst Haeckel, 



rp " *, • ' osed to remove the difficulty by establishing a third kingdom. Protista, 

 bv him '^'^"y tloubtful species and many that are not so have been assigned 

 seems to '^^ ^^^ distinguished followers. Still, to many the proposition 

 on st' -crease rather than diminish the perplexity, for now we have two 



.L 1 A.U '^tcad of one to contend with, viz., to separate Protista from ani- 



mals on the ' ' X 



')ne hand, and second, from plants on the other. Again, if I 



I 



