LIFE'S SIMPLEST CHILDREN. 25 
pieces of shell (a 1 , Fig. 4), which the little architect 
has used to build the walls of his house, when for 
some reason the ordinary material was deficient It 
seems to me that the power of this living drop to 
choose its own materials is one of the most wonderful 
facts in the history of life's simplest children. 
These miliolites and other Foraminifera when 
found clinging to sea-weed are easily placed in a salt- 
water aquarium, and they will then thrust their 
threads out of the mouth of the shell and crawl on 
the sides of the glass. Professor Schultze even saw 
a number of young miliolites born in an aquarium, 
and this was how it happened. He noticed one day 
that several of his miliolites had covered the outside 
of their shells with their brown slimy body, and a 
few days later he could see through the microscope 
a number of dark-looking specks gradually loosening 
themselves from this slime. 
There were as many as forty of these specks on 
one shell, and after a time he could distinguish that 
every speck was a tiny miliolite, having only one 
chamber (i, Fig. 5) to begin life in, the shell of 
which was so pale and transparent that he could 
see the slime within it. As soon as each one 
shook himself free from the rest of the slime, he 
put out his threads and crawled away on the glass 
to get his own living ; and now when Professor 
Schultze examined the shell of the parent miliolite, 
he found it almost empty. The mother had broken 
herself up into her little children ! 
A miliolite builds generally only six or seven 
chambers, but other forms, such as c, Figure 4, build 
hundreds of separate apartments. This particular 
