20 ZOOLOGY. 



Moner— for example, Protmmha—K simply a speck or drop 

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

 consistency 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. — Protomyxa aurantiaca. A, encysted. B, cyst filled with germe. C, germs 

 (a, rf, c) iesuiug from the cyst. D, a young Protomyxa swallowing a diatom (a). 

 E, adult after enclosing or swallowing several shelled Infusoria. — After 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 Amceba — viz., (1) it is con- 

 tractile ; (2) it is irritable and automatic ; (3) it is receptive 



