T)OSSIBLY the simplest of life's children are the singu- 

 J- larly unique and structureless little Finger Slimes, 

 which live not only in the sea but also in puddles and pools, 

 and in the gutters of our streets and of our house-tops. 

 Anywhere that stagnant water abounds these tiny drops of 

 slime will grow up and make it their home. Sometimes few 

 and far between, and sometimes in such immense crowds 

 that the entire pond would seem, if they could be seen 

 with the unaided vision, literally alive with them, they live, 

 and multiply and die under our very feet. 



Nothing can be less animal-like than one of these shapeless 

 masses of pure protoplasm, yet under a microscope of strong 

 power it may be seen moving lazily along by pulling out a 

 thick finger of slime and then letting all the rest of its body 

 flow after it. When coming into contact with food it may 

 be said to flow over it, dissolving the soft parts and sending 

 out the hard, indigestible refuse anywhere, no matter where, 

 for its body is devoid of skin, being merely one general mass 

 of homogeneous slime. 



But what can these little slime specks tell us about the 

 wonderful powers of life ? Nothing at all, it would seem, 

 for in these tiny creatures life has nothing better to work 

 with than a mere drop of living matter, which is all alike 

 throughout, so that if broken into a hundred pieces every 

 piece would be as much a living being as the whole. And 

 yet by means of the wonderful gift of life, with which the 

 all-wise Omnipotence has endowed it, this slime-drop lives, 

 and breathes, and eats, and increases, shrinks away when you 



