THE BEGINNINGS OF LIFE. 195 



enclosed mass of protoplasm; whilst by a continu- 

 ance of the process it eventually became broken up 

 into a number of small reddish balls about ^ ^ " in 

 diameter. After the lapse of about a week Professor 

 Haeckel noticed that a slow movement of the naked 

 protoplasm masses had commenced within the cyst. 

 He says : ' The motion consisted in no regular rota- 

 tion of the balls, but in a slow change of place 

 among them, in which they crowded in all directions 

 among each other without any fixed order. . . . 

 Some hours afterwards the motion had become livelier ; 

 and the red balls had assumed a pear-shaped form, in 

 which one end was produced into a fine point. In their 

 confused motions within the cyst they changed the 

 shape of their soft pear-shaped bodies many times, be- 

 coming sometimes drawn out into a longer, sometimes 

 into a shorter club-shaped body, and sometimes they 

 became twisted. . . . Next day I found one of 

 the cysts burst ; the empty collapsed wall lay shrivelled 

 at the bottom of the watch glass, and a great number 

 of small club- or pear-shaped red bodies moved about 

 freely in the sea-water. It now appeared that the red 

 balls were the sporules of the Protomyxa, and that they 

 danced about after issuing from the cyst like Flagellata, 

 or like the sporules of Algae. 3 These germs were quite 

 simple and homogeneous throughout no nucleus or 

 contractile vacuole was to be seen, no limiting mem- 

 brane, but only a yellowish-red protoplasmic substance 

 in which were imbedded a few fine granules. The 



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