AMOEBA. 



19 



facility, deserving well the names of Proteus and Amoeba bestowed upon 

 them by zoologists. 



(42.) When a drop of water containing these creatures is placed be- 

 neath the microscope, the observer at first discovers nothing but a few 

 semitransparent or cloudy-looking motionless globules, from which flows, 

 as from a drop of oil, a kind of semifluid stream, which, fixing itself upon 

 the object-glass, seems to draw the entire mass slowly after it. In this 

 way numerous expansions make their appearance from different parts 

 of the body, which after spreading to a little distance again shrink 

 and become completely blended with the central portion. The young 

 Amceba3 are perfectly diaphanous, and with difficulty perceptible except 

 under favourable circumstances ; but as they become older they lose this 

 transparency in consequence of the accumulation of foreign particles in 

 their interior, which seem to have been introduced from without by the 

 simple pressure of the semifluid body of the animalcule as by the con- 

 tractions and expansions of its various portions it crawls or rather flows 

 over them. 



Fig. 8. 



Amoeba princeps (Ehr.), magnified 300 diameters. The figures 1, 2, 3 exhibit the same animal 

 and its protean changes of form. 



There are, however, other corpuscles or granules, besides those above 

 indicated, found in the interior of these creatures. Some, extremely 

 minute and irregular in their shape, appear to differ only in density 

 from the surrounding glutinous substance, and these are considered by 

 Dujardin to be rather products of secretion than ova. They move about, 

 appearing to flow in accordance with the variable expansions of the 

 creature which contains them. But besides these, in large specimens of 

 Amoebae, other granules are met with (fig. 8, 1, 2, 3), which on account 

 of the uniformity of their appearance might with more plausibility be 

 regarded as reproductive germs ; but their nature is very doubtful. The 

 Amcebse are capable of multiplication by spontaneous fissure, or by de- 

 taching a lobe from their bodies, which will continue to live upon its 



c2 



