102 



THE HARMONIES OF NATURE. 



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or feet, which they are constantly protruding either for loco- 

 motion or for the seizure of their food. 



The naked Ehizopods consist of minute specks of a semi- 

 fluid, j elly-like, but 

 granular matter, 

 the particles of 

 which, when the 

 animal is in a state 

 of activity, are con- 

 tinually perform- 

 ing a circulatory 

 movement. This 

 substance, which 



Showing the extemporaneous feet formed by evanescent pro- naS been termed 

 jections of the general plastic mass of the animal. ( -. , , , , 



naturalists, is so plastic that the filaments protruded from 

 the homogeneous mass, and again withdrawn into it, subdivide 

 into finer and still finer threads, and are capable of blending 

 with each other whenever they come into contact. Thus they 

 are able to cast a perfect network round their prey, and to 

 embed it in a living mucus until all its soluble parts have been 

 absorbed. They have no stomach, no mouth, no muscles, no 

 nerves, but each atom of their tiny composition is capable in 

 turn of seizing, of digesting, and of moving. 



Other creatures excite our wonder by their complicated struc- 

 ture, these by the excessive simplicity of their organisation. 



Between the families of the naked Khizopods and the shell- 

 clad Foraminifera there are groups of intermediate types, which 

 seemingly indicate the path of progress from the lower to the 

 higher forms of these simple creatures. Sometimes the shell 

 of the Foraminifera consists of only one chamber ; in most cases, 

 however, it contains a large number of cells, arranged in a vast 

 variety of forms. Sometimes the little animal protrudes its 

 filaments through a single aperture, sometimes through innu- 

 merable openings with which the shell is everywhere perforated ; 

 and when we consider that the diameter of these pores usually 

 ranges from 1 -3,000th to 1 -10,000th of an inch, we can form 

 some idea of the extreme delicacy of the foot-like threads to 

 which they afford a passage. 



The elegance of shape of the Foraminifera is no less remark- 



