108 HANDY BOOK OP 



to receive food and digest it. If an Amoeba draws near 

 another small animal or vegetable organism whose move- 

 ments are not sufficiently quick to escape the enemy, it 

 spreads its many-shaped continuations round it ; after sur- 

 rounding the strange body, they float behind it together, 

 and the prisoner lies enclosed in an animal substance, till all 

 that is soluble is extracted from it. 



Though the Foraminifera and Amreba have no difference 

 of internal form, externally they differ greatly. The prin- 

 cipal distinction is, that, in the latter, the body is naked ; 

 but, in the former, exhibits a husk on its surface, through 

 which the soft animalcule inside thrusts forward the fleshy 

 parts that are used for crawling or seizing prey, by means 

 of one or more openings. The outstretched threads seem to 

 have something poisonous in their nature ; for Dr. Schultze, 

 of Griefswald, who has written a most interesting Monogram 

 on the Foraminifera, repeatedly noticed that small lively 

 Paramecia, Colpodes, and other infusoria, were entirely de- 

 prived of their motive powers by any sudden contact with 

 the outstretched net of threads. 



The calcareous structures of the Foraminifera, of which 

 1,600 varieties are already known, are remarkable both for 

 their prettiness and the multiplicity of their forms. They 

 are found globular and bottle-shaped, straight and spiral ; 

 some have, only one large opening, others have countless 

 small holes all round. In some, again, the cavity is simple, 

 in others, divided into several chambers. 



The Diatomacese play an equally great, if not greater, 

 part with the Foraminifera in the ocean kingdom. The 

 forms of these strange microscopic creatures display to U3 

 regular mathematical figures — cubes, triangles, parallelo- 

 grams — such as are found in no other plants; and their 

 surface is frequently most elegantly carved. They are 

 found in every sea. On Sir James Ross's last voyage of dis- 

 covery to the South Pole, the lead was sunk in depths which 

 Would have held Chimborazo, and Diatoniaceee were regularly 



