58 THE BIOLOGY OP DAILY LIFE. 



like an amaba.* " It is seen to take up small granules 

 from the surrounding fluid." 



5. While increase of red corpuscles practically 

 means increase of life and health, increase of white 

 corpuscles is at least the harbinger, if not the cause, of 

 disease and death. 



The white makes disease, 



But the red makes muscle ; 

 I would sooner have the red 



Than the white corpuscle.f 



* The amceba diffluens is a common microscopic object in stag- 

 nant water. " As it flows or glides from place to place is seen 

 to devour and digest the materials with which it is surrounded." 

 (Jones' " Animal Creation," p. 10.) 



Some one (with a turn for inaccurate biblical quotation) told 

 an inquiring American that " the wolf and the lamb shall lie 

 down together." " I guess," was the shrewd reply, " that the 

 lamb will lie to the inside of that wolf." It is even so with the 

 leucocyte and its granules. 



A romantic explanation is suggested in the latest edition 

 (1889) of Huxley's and Martin's " Elementary Biology," p. 373. 

 " Occasionally an ameeba has been seen to engulf another of 

 smaller size than itself ; and there is reason to believe that this 

 process, originally thought to have been one of cannibalism, may 

 probably be one of conjunction of dissimilar individuals for 

 reproduction, such as is seen in the bell-animalcule." 



Amsebic marriage customs are certainly peculiar, but then so 

 are some human marriage customs. So, though we cannot tell 

 which is the bride and which is the bridegroom, let us wish that 

 all may be " merry as a marriage-bell." 



That the amseba of the stagnant pool is a near blood relation 

 of ours, the following quotation from the same book seems to 

 intimate : 



" If amaebae are not to be found, their nature may be under- 

 stood by the examination of the colourless corpuscles of the blood." 

 (Ibid., p. 372.) 



t That the " red makes muscle" is undeniable, for as a respira- 

 tory agent it helps to make all the tissues of the body. I submit 



