366 MANUAL OF NATURAL HISTORY. 



being thrown off, which by degrees, grow to be as 

 their parent was before them, and in time con- 

 tribute their own quota to the numbers of their 

 race by this mode of paring or budding. 



In searching for them the naturalist must have 

 his eyes on the alert in every direction. On the 

 sea-shore, attached to rocks, or fastened on sea- 

 weeds, he will reap an ample harvest. Numbers oc- 

 cur in stagnant waters, but here the magnifying 

 assistance of the microscope must be brought into 

 requisition, and the greater its power, the more 

 astounding will be its revelations, strange-shaped, 

 curious-looking creatures being thus brought before 

 our view, whose wondrous forms bear no resemblance 

 to those of higher classes. The Foraminifers, until 

 lately arranged with Mollusks, in accordance with 

 their more primitive organization, here find an ap- 

 propriate neighbourhood. And lastly, we have the 

 Sponges, the most simply constructed members of 

 the Animal Kingdom, — an ill-used tribe, often 

 rudely rejected both by zoologist and by phy- 

 tologist ; but at present permitted a resting place 

 by the former, and looked upon as composing the 

 humblest order of one great department of na- 

 ture. 



V. Sub-Kingdom.— ACRXTE-ANIMALS (Acrita). 



Animal gelatinous, polymorphous, composed of 

 simple nucleated cells, either solitary or aggregated; 

 without distinct nervous fibre, or visceral cavities. 

 Generation either fissiparous or gemmiparous* 



