LIVING AND NON-LI VINO MATTER. 10 



plasm, or living jelly, yet it is a complete organism. 

 Its organs, however, are all extemporaneous. It 

 never retains the same outline or form, and it can 

 project any part of its substance in the shape of an 



Fig. 1. 



arm or branch, and if it touches any thing which 

 may serve it as food, the rest of the body will flow 

 around it and digest it. Indigestible parts it discards 

 by flowing away from them. It literally swallows 

 without a mouth, digests without a stomach, and 

 moves without muscles, while a small fragment of its 

 substance is capable of repeating the same things as an 

 independent organism. Such living Amoebae are found 

 in stagnant pools of water and many other places. 

 Since every piece of bioplasm has similar changes of 

 shape, it is agreed to call such changes amoeboid. 



(3) Wandering movements. As unconfined bio- 

 plasm can flow along an arm or branch of its own 

 body around its food, it can in the same manner 

 change its position from place to place. In this way 



