AMCEBA. 63 



The larger granules within are particles of matter that 

 have been taken in as food through that part of the body 

 with which they first came in contact ; there is no mouth, 

 no stomach, but any place on the surface serves as a mouth 

 when a mouth is needed, and any place within serves as a 

 stomach when food is thus taken ; neither is there a defi- 

 nite opening for ejecting indigestible matter, but by flow- 

 ing around the substances it meets, it in a way swallows 

 them, and, having digested and absorbed such parts as are 

 suitable for food, ejects, or rather flows away from the use- 

 less remnants. 



Make a series of sketches of the outline, at as short 

 intervals as possible, to show the changes of form. 



Make also a careful drawing, showing all the parts of 

 the body that have been made out. 



The jelly-like substance of which the body of the amoeba 

 is composed is protoplasm. 



The amoeba reproduces its kind by simply dividing into 

 two parts, each of which becomes a perfect amoeba. 



"Thus the amoeba lives, moves, eats, grows, reproduces 

 its kind, and after a time dies, having been duriug its 

 whole life hardly anything more than a minute lump of 

 protoplasm." 



The simplicity of the structure of the amoeba and its 

 simple mode of reproduction show its low place in the 

 animal kingdom; with the Vorticella, Paramoecium, and 

 myriads of other microscopic aquatic animals, the Amoeba 

 represents the lowest branch of the animal kingdom, the 

 Protozoa. Most of the Protozoa are one-celled animals, 

 in distinction from some of the higher protozoa, which 

 some authors regard as many-celled, and all other animals 

 from sponges to man, which are undoubtedly many-celled. 



