120 RAMBLES AND REVERIES. 



is not now regarded as a very scientific one, although 

 it has given a title to several highly scientific 

 volumes, such as Pritchard's magnificent History 

 of the British Infusoria. The term did very well 

 while hardly anything was known about the struc- 

 ture and affinities and development of the organisms ; 

 but now that nearly all of them have been minutely 

 studied by microscopists, and their habits and life- 

 history thoroughly explained, they have to be 

 separated widely from one another in any accurate 

 zoological scale. In those days almost every tiny 

 thing that could swim about, even the spores of 

 mosses and ferns, and the zoospores of seaweeds, 

 were set down as animalcules, but we know better 

 now. 



Well, we will begin with the lowliest of them, 

 the Amoeba. It is not easy to detect it, unless one 

 knows what to look for. But do you see those 

 glairy, gum-like patches that seem to lie motionless 

 on the glass ? Those are amcebfe. And they are 

 not motionless. Look well, and keep your eye 

 steadily fixed upon one of them. You will see that 

 it is not only not motionless, but it is never 

 still. Why, it was actually named after the old 

 mythical prophet Proteus, who never retained the 

 same form. It is now called amoeba, which means 

 that it is ever changing. As you *gaze at it yon 

 will see how it slowly puts out a sort of limb from 

 some part of its body, which gradually twines itself 

 around some speck of food, and then draws back the 

 newly-made limb into the mass of its body, bringing 

 the tiny meal with it. Or it may pour its body by 



