434: EVENINGS AT THE MICEOSCOPE. 



tion takes the i^lace of Dorset; Kent is immensely 

 prolonged ; the bladder has quite disappeared, &c. ; 

 but it is impossible to follow these changes, which 

 are ever going on without a moment's intermission, 

 and without the slightest recognisable rule or order. 



FOBMS OF AMCEBA. 



Successively drawn from one individual. 



The projections are obliterated or exaggerated ; the 

 sinuosities are smoothed, or deepened into gulfs, or 

 protruded into promontories ; firths form here, capes 

 there ; not by starts, but evenly, and with sufficient 

 rapidity to be appreciable to the eye while under 

 actual observation ; though the alterations are more 

 striking if you take your eye oif the object for a few 

 seconds, and then look again ; and still more so, if you 

 try to sketch the outline. Individuals vary greatly in 

 dimensions ; this specimen is about one hundred and 

 twentieth of an inch in long diameter, but others I have 

 seen not more than one-tenth as large as this, and some, 

 twice as large. 



Disregarding now this peculiarity of change of 

 form, which has procured for it the name of the old 

 versatile sea-god that was so difficult to bind, we will 

 concentrate our attention on some other points not less 



