30 ZOOLOGY. 



Moaer — for example, Prot^mceba — is simply a speck or drop 

 of transparent, often colorless, viscid fluid, scarcely of more 

 con&;^stency than, and in all apparent physical characters 

 identical with, the white of a hen's egg. And yet this drop 

 of protoplasm has the power of absorbing the protoplasm of 

 other living beings, and thus of increasing in size — i.e., 

 growing ; and in taking its food makes various movements, 

 one or more parts of its body being more movable than 



Fig. 9.—Prptomyxa aurantiaca. A, encysted. B, cyst nUed with gci-ms C eerms 

 ia, (f, c) iBsuuig from the eyst D, a young Protomyxa swallowing a diatim (o). 

 M, adult alter enclosing or swallowing Beveral shelled Infusoria.— Aftei- Haeckel. 



others, the faculty of motion thus being for the moment 

 specialized ; it has apparently the power of selecting one 

 kind of food in preference to another, and, finally, of repro- 

 ducing its kind by a process not only of simple self -division, 

 but also of germ-production. In short, we may say of the 

 Moner what Foster says of the Amoeba— viz., (1) it is con- 

 tractile ; (3) it is irritable and automatic ; (3) it is receptive 



