THE RADIOLARIA 93 



Messina, in October, 1859, he got certain curious 

 lumps and strips of jelly. The local fishermen 

 called them ovi di mare (sea-eggs). It was, in 

 fact, natural enough to regard these inert creatures 

 as strings of mollusc-eggs, when their real nature 

 was unknown. But our young student already 

 knew what they were. They were social radio- 

 laria. 



The word "radiolarium," from radius (a ray), 

 means a raying or radiating animal. It is diffi- 

 cult for the inexpert to imagine the structure 

 of one of these creatures. He must first put 

 entirely on one side all the features that he 

 usually associates with an " animal." The radio- 

 larian lives, moves, has sensations, breathes, eats, 

 and reproduces, but in a totally different way 

 from that we are accustomed to see. Its body 

 consists essentially of a particle of homogeneous 

 living matter. There is merely a firmer nucleus 

 in the centre of it, and the soft gelatinous matter 

 is thickened at the surface to form a kind of 

 capsule. Otherwise there is no trace of any 

 real " organ." The little blob of jelly eats 

 but it has no stomach ; it eats with its whole 

 body, its soft, jelly-like substance closing entirely 

 over particles of food and absorbing them. It 

 breathes (with the animal type of respiration) 

 but it has neither lungs nor gills ; the whole 

 body takes in oxygen and gives off carbonic acid. 

 It swims about yet it has neither legs nor fins ; 

 the pulpy mass of its body flows, when it is 

 necessary, into a crown of streamers or loose pro- 



