CHAPTER X. 



There's beauty all around our paths, 



If but our watchful eyes 

 Can trace it 'midst familiar things, 



And through their lowly guise. 



HEMANS. 



FORAMINIFERA OF SOUTHPORT. 



HE Foraminifera are members of that class of animal life 

 termed Rhizopoda, or root-footed animals, so named 

 from the power they possess of putting out filaments for the 

 purpose of locomotion ; or, as it were, extemporising limbs 

 from any part of their body as occasion requires. Collec- 

 tively, the Rhizopoda form one of the three classes into which 

 the Protozoa, the lowest forms of life, are divided, the other 

 classes being the Porifera, the type of which is the common 

 sponge, and the Infusoria. There are two distinct orders in 

 the Rhizopoda, the fresh-water and the marine. The first is 

 well represented by the Amceba, common in fresh-water ponds, 

 and in describing which we describe the animals of the whole 

 class. The Amoeba is a minute jelly-like substance, without 

 any differentiation of parts ; a simple homogeneous mass, 



