THE BEGINNINGS OF LIFE. 



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193 



process of reproduction recently described by Professor 

 Haeckel as occurring in Frotomyxa aurantiacuj one of the 

 lowest amoeboid creatures, belonging to the group Mo~ 

 nera^ found by him on a shell dredged from deep water 

 near the Canary Isles. It existed in the form of a mass 

 of jelly-like substance of a reddish-yellow colour, visible 

 even to the naked eye, the peripheral portions of whose 

 body-mass were prolonged into moving, branch-like 

 appendages. These very frequently became more or 

 less united and interlaced amongst one another, whilst 

 the homogeneous body-substance displayed in its inte- 

 rior only a number of small granules, interspersed with 

 larger, highly refractive, and more or less spherical par- 

 tides, and also a variable number of merely temporary 

 spaces, or vacuoles, containing fluid, 

 particles, and vacuoles were invariably found to increase 

 in direct proportion to the amount of food which the 

 Frotomyxa had previously taken. After a time some of 

 the highly-fed individuals were seen to undergo a pro- 

 cess of encystment. They began to retract their vari- 

 ous branch-like pseudopodia^ and to eject all debris of 

 food that might still remain within their body-sub- 

 stance, whilst the vacuoles in their interior diminished 

 in number. After some days, instead of the previously 

 branched plasmodium, little orange-red spherical balls 

 were to be seen. The external layers of these gradu- 

 ally became more and more defined, and afterwards the 

 contracted body-mass was found to be enclosed within 

 a thick colourless envelope or cyst. The vacuoles and 



The granules. 



VOL. I. 



o 



