SYSTEMATIC ZOOLOGY FOR TEACHERS. 173 



the mantle ot a mollusk and the careful selection of sand grains by an amoe- 

 ba. 



While all of my readers may not have arrived at a point in psychical 

 reasoning, where they can agree with me in considering instinct as inherited 

 reason, the accumulated intelligence of many generations, the fact still re- 

 mains that each of the stone laying amoebae has to select material which 

 differs in form from that used by their progenitors, and that in using this 

 varying material, they must display intelligence, not only in the selection, 

 but above all, in placing this mateiial so as to acccmplish such very similar 

 results in structures. 



In other words, the same inner impulse, or a similar one, which guides 

 the intelligent stone mason in selecting material for constructing a wall, guides 

 this little atom of seemingly unorganized protoplasm to select peculiarly 

 formed sand grains for its habitation. 



I have selected this type of protozoa as an example of intelligence, but 

 a few moments of careful observation of the movements of the varying species 

 of the one celled animals contained in a drop of ditch water, placed under a 

 good microscope, cannot fail to convince the observing and thoughtful stu- 

 dent that these animals display intelligence. In their most hurried move- 

 ments through the water and in their many evolutions in search of food they 

 not only avoid accidental contact with one another, but also avoid inanimate ob- 

 jects. In fact, in all of their changing movements, these minute organisms 

 show that they are endowed at least with some rudiment of a mind. 



Points of Advancement. 



Among the protozoans themselves we find several degrees of advancement 

 both structural and mental. The lowest forms of the group, the monera, are 

 so veiy simple in structure as to be almost formless. They propagate by 

 simple fission, or by rupture, when small cells are liberated, which are at 

 first globular, but which gradually change into amoeboid forms. These in 

 turn settle down into a jelly-like mass and this mass obtains food by thrust- 

 ing out pseudopodia. Then the jelly-like mass is finally transformed into 

 globular forms that reproduce by rupture or fission as before. - Here but lit- 

 tle intelligence is required. 



The foraminifera, and allied forms, gather lime from the sea which, be- 

 ing passed through their organisms, produces shelly coverings. Little, or no, 

 selection on the part of the animal is here required, consequently there is a 

 very limited amount of intelligence, but a rather complicated protoplasmic 

 structure must be present. Locomotion is produced by pseudopodia. 



