THE LOWER FORMS OF LIFF. 33 



failed to discover our beautiful bell in such a shape, and it was 

 therefore considered by grave classifying philosophers to belong to an 

 altogether different family, and a new genus, termed Acineta, was 

 formed, to hold the various forms of spiny bottle-shaped looking 

 creatures. Some of them choose to attach their stalks, or, having 

 no stalk, to develop one and become attached to each other, and 

 then a new genus, the Podophrya, was formed. Luckily, our little 

 Vorticella having developed a number of young germs within her 

 bristly bottles, the said bottles burst, and the young fry, being 

 watched by philosophic eyes, are found to be nothing more than 

 veritable Vorticellae ! 



Now, in all the changes which I have described in the different 

 parts of the infusorial animalcules in the formation of their coats, 

 their cilia, mouths, gullets, contractile spaces, nuclei, and nucleoli 

 it must be distinctly understood that I have not referred to a single 

 structure which is organised in the strict sense of the word. No one 

 has yet discovered anything like a membrane, or any of the struc- 

 tures by which the different organs in the higher classes of animals 

 are built up. All that is yet known about them is that they are 

 simply formed in every part, outwardly and inwardly, of the jelly- 

 like substance known as sarcode. That our knowledge upon this 

 subject is still limited I certainly do believe. These lower forms of life 

 have not received that attention from our English histologists which 

 they have done from the German and French. Professors Huxley, 

 Carpenter, Allman, and Greene, Dr. S. Wright, and Mr. Bowerbank 

 are, however, names of celebrity, and from them the Protozoa have 

 received much attention. I wish they would give us a work like 

 the "Icones Histiologicae " of Kolliker. Perhaps Dr. Beale will some 

 day turn his one-fiftieth objective upon this lowly race of beings, 

 and tell us what 2500 diameters will show him. 



CHAPTER III. 

 THE EHIZOPODA. 



TAKE a drop of water from any stagnant ditch, and place it under 

 the microscope. Disregard the hundreds of creatures which we 

 dealt with in the last chapter, and fix your attention upon that 

 shapeless mass which lies on one side of the microscopic field. It 

 looks like some extraneous substance which has stolen unbidden into 

 the arena of our studies ; but keep your eye notwithstanding upon 



D 



