MARVELS OF THE POND. 121 



a very curious process after the limb, and so manages 

 to crawl about. It has no legs or arms, but it 

 makes them as required. Neither has it any mouth, 

 but it can manufacture one at any spot. As for a 

 stomach, well, it is all stomach, for it takes in food 

 all over. These limbs are usually called pseudopodia, 



FIG. 28. Amoeba. 



false feet, and consist of protoplasm, just the sort of 

 stuff you and I are made of, if we go back to the 

 original elements of the human body. 



Imagine an amoeba with a tiny shell, and you 

 have one of those minute foraminifera whose long 

 labours in the sea have done so much to build up 

 the thousands of feet of chalk cliffs of our shores j 



