MONERA. 19 
whole, being surrounded and engulfed by the body, and the 
protoplasmic matter is then absorbed, serving for the nour- 
ishment and growth of the Moner. 
The simplest form known, and supposed to be really a living 
being, is Haeckel’s Protameba. It muy best be described 
by stating that it is like an’-Ame@da, but without a nucleus 
and vacuoles (or little cavities). It reproduces by simple 
self-division, much as in Ameba (Fig. 11). 
In Protomonas the body is very changeable in form, the 
pseudopods often being very slender, thread-like. Fig. 8, 
A represents this Moner during the formation of the young 
(zoospores) in the cyst-like bodr, or resting-stage of the 
creature ; B, one of these germs freed from the cyst and 
capable of moving about by the two thread-like pseudopo- 
dia; C.D, the Amesba-like form which the young after- 
ward assumes, and which at maturity passes into the en- 
cysted or resting-stage LZ. 
A still better idea of what a Moner is may be seen by 
studying the Protomyza aurantiaca Haeckel. 
This Moner was discovered at the Canary Islands. It is 
from half to one millimetre in diameter, and is a perfectly 
simple mass of orange-red jelly. When hungry numerous 
root-shaped threads (pseudopodia) radiate from the central 
mass. Fig. 9, # represents the Protomyxa after. having 
absorbed into its body-mass a number of shelled Jnfusoria. 
When about to become encysted (4 B) it rejects the shell 
of its victims, retracts its false feet, and soon becomes fast- 
ened as minute red balls to the surface of some dead shell. 
The ball becomes enclosed by a thick covering (A), and 
then the contents become divided into several hundred small, 
round, thoroughly structureless spheres, which become germs 
(B). The germs finally burst through the cyst-wall, as in 
C, a, c, d, and assume various monad-like and ameeboid 
shapes, and finally attain, by simple additions of the proto- 
plasm of its food (diatoms and infusoria), the adult form 
(DH). Other Moners exist in fresh water. 
We have been dealing with the simplest living forms, be- 
ings showing no trace of organization, much lower and 
simpler than the Ameba, with its nucleus. The individual 
