BY THE DEEP SEA. 



a more aesthetic race that have taken to build themselves 

 houses, in most cases of graceful form, such as are referred to 

 in Dr. Carpenter's concluding words. One of the fresh-water 

 amaebae is named Difflttgia, and it distinguishes itself by coat- 

 ing the greater part of its small body with particles of sand 

 and other matter picked up as the Difflugia rolls along. The 

 Foraminifera do not resort to so clumsy a method of satisfying 

 their architectural instincts. In the course of their feeding 

 they take into their primitive systems a good deal of carbonate 

 of lime, and instead of casting this out as innutritious, useless 

 stuff, they secrete it as shell, in many cases not unlike the 

 shells of mollusks, but with minute pores (foramina} all over 

 them. From this character they derived their name Forami- 

 mfera or pore-bearers. 



Within these perforated shells 

 live the amaeba-like animals, and 

 through all these minute pores 

 they protrude still more minute 

 threads or wisps of their living 

 jelly to use as limbs wherewith to 

 pull themselves along, and to 

 catch their food. There is a very 

 ancient conundrum which asks : 

 " What is smaller than a mite's 

 mouth ? " a mite being formerly 



considered to be the least of all animals and a very 

 minute thing indeed ; therefore, to imagine the mouth of a 

 mite was to conceive of something so very small as to be 

 almost beyond conception. But then came the answer : 

 " That which goes into it ! " Of course, if a mite had a mouth 

 it must have it for the purpose of eating, so that though 

 nothing were known smaller than a mite, yet a mite must have 

 a mouth, and that could scarcely be quite as large as the mite, 

 and its food must be smaller than its mouth. A naturalist 

 would say that this line of reasoning is weak, and it undoubt- 

 edly is so, for there are creatures that contrive to swallow 



FORAMINIFERA. 



Polymorphina. 2. Textularia. 

 3. Cristellaria. 



