20 ZOOLOG ¥. 
Moner—for example, /?otumeba—is 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 ahen’s egg. And yet this drop 
of protoplasm has the power of absorbing the protoplasm of 
other living beings, and thus cf 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.—Protomyza uurantiacu. A, encysted. B, cyst filled with germs. 
% a ¢) issuing from the cyst. D, a young Protomyxa swallowing a ioe oe 
, 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 bya 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 Ameeba—viz., (1) it is con- 
tractile ; (2) it is irritable and automatic ; (3) itis receptive 
