768 



The Living Animals of the World 



•;ih-Kait, F.Z.S.] 



POLYCYSTS. 



[Miljun^'on-Sea. 



FliDty-shelled organisms of niicvoscopic dinienbiuns. 

 liviug animals consist of tmy specks of tiansinrent jelly 

 which nvdiate Innunierable false feet of hair-like finene.'-:s. 



The 

 fiuni 



in wliich the water of the Nile was as it were 

 " turned to blood, and all the fish died," has been 

 attributed to a phenomenal development of these 

 animalcules, which, on dying, polluted and putre- 

 fied the water. Instances of fishes being destroyed 

 in vast quantities through a like agency through- 

 out even extensive sea-areas have been occasionally 

 recorded. While these pages are going to press 

 an account has appeared in an American journal 

 of red water caused by these flagellate animalcules, 

 which occurred last July for an extent of at 

 least 200 miles along the coast of California, 

 producing with their decomposition a most sicken- 

 in"' odour, and the death of shoals of fishes, 

 octopods, sea-cucumbers, and other organisms. 



Next to the Flagellates come the Eoot-footed 

 Animalcules, which possess no mouth and no hairs 

 or lashes, but progress by pushing out lobes of their 

 jelly-like substance in any desired direction, into 

 which the rest of the body flows. Food is picked 

 up at any point with which an acceptable morsel 

 may be brought in contact. The little gelatinous animal known as an Amceba is one of 

 these. IJelated forjns of this jelly animalcule secrete shells of varying form and structure. 

 Some of these, known as Forams, are of carbonate of lime, and wonderfully like nautiluses and 

 other of the higher molluscan shells in aspect. Though so minute, scarcely visible to the 

 unassisted eye, they occur in the sea in such numbers as to form by their aggregations the 

 more considerable ingredients of vast areas of the earth's strata, both past and present. The 

 chalk cliffs of Albion and the white tenacious ooze of the broad Atlantic are thus to a larofe 

 extent composed of the shells of minute organisms, which formerly flourished near the surface 

 of the ocean, but sank on their death to its abysmal depths. 



The simplest of the forams fabricate shells with a single chamber, which are often 

 elegantly vase- or flask-shaj^ed. JMore usually, however, the shell represents the product of 

 repeated buddings or outgrowths, and may attain considerable dimensions. Flattened circular 

 forms of this type much resemble time-worn coins, and are hence called Nummulites. Their 

 fossil-shells enter mainly into the composition of rocks which extend through North Africa 

 and Asia to the Himalaya, and supplied tlie stone of which the Pyramids are built. 



Allied to the Forams, but distinguislied by the radiating, needle-like contour of their 

 false feet and the flinty texture of their shells, are an equally numerous assemblage of 

 organisms known as Kadiolarians. Like the Forams, they are inhabitants of the sea, and 

 their discarded shells enter extensively into the constitution of strata. A little slobular fresh- 

 water form, devoid of a shell, and with slender bristle-like feet radiating in every direction, 

 is known as the >SaiN'-ANiMALCULE, and forms a connecting-link between the last two groups. 



From Man to Egg-laying JMammals, Molluscs to Animalcules, the vast scheme of the 

 Animal Creation has now been successively portrayed. With such simple gelatinous life-specks 

 as the Amwba and its allies The Living Animals of the World make their exit : unorganised 

 organisms, groping blindly in the darkness—" Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything." 



ENU OF vol. II. 



