FORAMINIFERA. 



183 



Closely related to the infusoria are the foraminifera, 

 minute beings whose organization is still more simple 

 than that of the former. They move around at the 

 bottom of fresh and salt water, and their bodies consist 

 simply of microscopic masses of protoplasm gifted with 

 the power of movement, and called sarcode. Move- 

 ment is accomplished by more or less numerous and 

 lengthy expansions, which may be observed to project 

 from the surface of the body, into which they after- 

 wards retract and disappear. 



AMCEBA. 1, amoeba, with blunt processes, nucleus, nc, contractile vacuoles, 

 vc, food vacuoles, and granules ; 2, two daughter-amoebae ; 3, amoeba in pro- 

 cess of dividing ; 4, encysted phase, with enclosed diatoms, etc. (After 

 Butschli and G. B. Howes.) 



Sometimes the sarcode is naked, and the forms are 

 then the most simple, being known as amoebse and pro- 

 tamoebso. 



Sometimes, however, the sarcode is covered with a 

 calcareous envelope, a sort of carapace, pierced with nu- 



