1888.] MICROSCOPICAL JOUENAL. 165 



2. The second reason why Heteroniita lens is an animal is the course 

 of its life-history. This is now reasonably well known, and is in accord with 

 those of others that are unmistakably of the animal series. 



3. Its contractile vesicle is an attribute peculiar to the microscopic animal. 

 True, a similar endowment has been attributed to species of Protophyta. I 

 am not convinced that such exist, at least of the nature and action of those 

 of creatures similar to Hetei'omita. 



4. When the motions and behavior of these mites are takea into account 

 one receives an impi^ession that they are guided by intelligence and a con- 

 scious state wholly different from the influences controlling the motions of the 

 one-celled plants. While this is not a high order of proof it should not, I 

 think, be wholly disregarded. It certainly is in constant and instinctive use 

 by those who study these forms. 



Heteromita is clearly an animal. How stands the matter with the lowest 

 plasmodic beings? The amoeba, e. g.^ has no definite form; its exterior 

 bounding parts are less diftei-entiated than those of the animal described 

 above. It has no specialized organs of locomotion like this one, while it 

 has a nucleus and contracting or pulsating vacuole. It feeds also on or- 

 ganic particles, which it takes in the solid state indifferently at any part of 

 its body, and it moves about with a freedom and conscious direction that 

 stamp it as one of the animal series. The very small amoeba found in our 

 creeks and ponds could not well be less complex and still exhibit the func- 

 tions of animal life. Dr. Carpenter's often-quoted words characterizing the 

 Rhizopoda aptly describe it : — ' A little particle of apparently homogeneous 

 jelly, changing itself into a greater variety of forms than the fabled Proteus, 

 laying hold of its food without members, swallowing, it without a mouth, 

 digesting it without a stomach ; moving from place to place without muscles, 

 and feeling without nerves.' But there are lower animals, it is said ; the 

 ilTci^^era, for example : — ' An organism without organs, which * * * con- 

 sists of a freely-movable naked body, composed of a structureless and homo- 

 geneous sarcode never-differentiating nuclei within the homogeneous proto- 

 plasm.' Is this existence plant or animal? For one, I am willing to leave 

 it in '' No Man's Land.' A large number of the simplest forms, once i^eo-arded 

 as non-nucleated and without differentiation, are on further study found to be 

 nucleated and otherwise not so simple as at first supposed. Monera^ it seems, 

 is already limited, and may vanish entirely under the searching scrutiny of 

 recent methods. 



So far as the Monera is concerned, I have to say I cannot find it. I have 

 ransacked every likely place within my reach at all seasons without encoun- 

 tering such a being. I do not presume to deny its existence because I cannot 

 find it, but I have a sufficiently wide acquaintance with unicellular plants and 

 iinimals, and with their haunts, to justify me in doubting their individuality, 

 ) far as my own general conclusions are concerned. I do not, however, 

 jj 'sh to speak for others, or to influence them in this matter. Both neo-ative 

 gg^gjDositive results of my studies compel me to doubt that Alonera, in the 

 ence\^*- ^^^ ^^^* described, exists, as much as we all to-day doubt the exist- 



Ag9f Bothybius. 

 Dertinl*^^" as beings like our Heterojnita were discovered there arose the 

 frao-mei"*- '"<^FiiT' whence came they ? They had no visible ancestry. A few 

 hours b^*^ °^' dried grass put into a clear beaker with clear water, after a few 

 others lil|'°"S^''^ ioxlh. living myriads. Was it, therefore, true that these, and 

 into consc^ them, which people every wayside ditch and stagnant pool, came 

 therein ? 'ousness and life from the dead by chemical and physical changes 

 and vet it V\' ^^^ "°*' "^^^^^^'^^T ^o stand upon the belief of such an origin, 

 vas in accordance with the known facts. While mankind was 



