THE TRIUMPH OF LIFE 



seizes and surrounds its prey with its whole 

 body, sucks it out and casts it aside. It propa- 

 gates since it splits its whole body, falling into 

 two pieces. 



Only the most timid attempt at an organic 

 shape appears in these primitive forms. A firm 

 kernel is found in the soft cell mass. In in- 

 fusorium noctiluca,* numberless individuals of 

 which adorn every wave like gleaming hoar 

 ^'rost, we find a fine feeler extending from the 

 ubble shaped swollen cell body out over the 

 /nouth slit, but this moutli does not yet lead 

 nto a stomach, but only into the body mass it- 

 elf. At the most the noctiluca has a diameter 

 of not more than one three hundredths of an 

 Inch. With this size it is a giant among the 

 multitude of tiny shining people about it, among 

 the gleaming bacteria. The largest of the 

 bacteria sinks to one seven hundred thou- 

 sandths of an inch. In comparison with the 

 bacteria the noctiluca is not like a whale among 

 herring, that would be a poor comparison ; rath- 

 er among bacteria three feet long it would rise 

 like a snow-capped mountain. The illuminat- 

 ing power of such bacteria is so strong that one 

 may read the finest writing by the light of a 

 bacteria culture in a g'lass vessel. For months 

 this living blue lamp will glow, so long in fact 



•Abundant on the surface of the water of the ocean and 

 one of the most usual causes of the phosphorescence of the 

 sea. — Trans. 



17 



