768 THE LIVING ANIMALS OF THE WORLD 



fhoto by 



[Milfrd-tn-Sta 



Savillt-Kint, F.Z.S.] 



POLYCYSTS 



Flinty-shelled organisms of microscopic dimensions. The li-vtng 

 animals consist of tiny specks of transparent jelly, from "which 

 radiate innumerable false feet of hair-like fineness 



in which the water of the Nile was as it were 

 " turned to blood, and all the fish .died," has been 

 attributed to a phenomenal development of these 

 animalcules, which, on dying, polluted and putre- 

 fied the water. Instances of fishes being destroyed 

 in vast quantities through a like agency through- 

 out even extensive sea-areas have been occasionally 

 recorded. While these pages are going to press 

 an account has appeared in an American journal 

 of red water caused by these flagellate animalcules, 

 which occurred last July for an extent of at least 

 200 miles along the coast of California, producing 

 with their decomposition a most sickening odour, 

 and the death of shoals of fishes, octopods, sea- 

 cucumbers, and other organisms. 



Next to the Flagellates come the ROOT-FOOTED 

 ANIMALCULES, which possess no mouth and no 

 hairs or lashes, but progress by pushing out lobes 

 of their jelly-like substance in any desired direction, 

 into which the rest of the body flows. Food is 

 picked up at any point with which an acceptable 

 morsel may be brought in contact. The little gelatinous animal known as an AMOEBA is one of 

 these. Related forms of this jelly animalcule secrete shells of varying form and structure. 

 Some of these, known as FORAMS, are of carbonate of lime, and wonderfully like nautiluses and 

 other of the higher molluscan shells in aspect. Though so minute, scarcely visible to the 

 unassisted eye, they occur in the sea in such numbers as to form by their aggregations 

 the more considerable ingredients of vast areas of the earth's strata, both past and present. 

 The chalk cliffs of Albion and the white tenacious ooze of the broad Atlantic are thus to a 

 large extent composed of the shells of minute organisms, which formerly flourished near the 

 surface of the ocean, but sank on their death to its abysmal depths. 



The simplest of the forams fabricate shells with a single chamber, which are often 

 elegantly vase- or flask-shaped. More usually, however, the shell represents the product of 

 repeated buddings or outgrowths, and may attain considerable dimensions. Flattened circular 

 forms of this type much resemble time-worn coins, and are hence called NUMMULITES. Their 

 fossil-shells enter mainly into the composition of rocks which extend through North Africa 

 and Asia to the Himalaya, and supplied the stone of which the Pyramids are built. 



Allied to the Forams, but distinguished by the radiating, needle-like contour of their 

 false feet and the flinty texture of their shells, are an equally numerous assemblage of 

 organisms known as RADIOLARIANS. Like the Forams, they are inhabitants of the sea, and 

 their discarded shells enter extensively into the constitution of strata. A little globular fresh- 

 water form, devoid of a shell, and with slender bristle-like feet radiating in every direction, 

 is known as the SUN-ANIMALCULE, and forms a connecting-link between the last two groups. 



From Man to Egg-laying Mammals, Molluscs to Animalcules, the vast scheme of the 

 Animal Creation has now been successively portrayed. With such simple gelatinous life-specks 

 as the Amoeba and its allies THE LIVING ANIMALS OF THE WORLD make their exit : unorganised 

 organisms, groping blindly in the darkness " Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything." 



