34 Life and Immortality. 



PROTOMYXA FEEDING. 



course to and fro. For five or six hours the little fellow 

 hugs closely round the prey until it has become thoroughly 

 absorbed, at least the nutritious parts, into its body-mass, 

 when it draws itself away, or back into its original place, 

 leaving by its side the skeleton of its late victim. Without 

 eyes or ears or parts of any kind it knows how to find its 

 food ; without muscles or limbs it is able to seize it ; without 

 a mouth it can suck out its living body, and without a 

 stomach it can digest the food in the midst of its own slime, 

 and cast out the parts for which it has no use. 



When Protomyxa has become a burden to itself it divides 

 itself by a simple process of fission, each part being complete 

 in itself, or it assumes a thick covering, becoming encysted, 

 as it is termed. In a little while the enclosed mass divides 

 into spheres, the cell-wall bursts, and the little spheres, which 

 have now taken on a sort of tadpole shape, float out upon 

 the water, where they soon assume the parent-form. 



