. The Bible and science. uch a constitution as rendersit fit to serve as nutriment. To this structureless, protoplasmic mass the name ofmonera has been given by Haeckel. It is impossibleto say whether it belongs to the animal or the vegetablekingdom, and so this naturalist has placed it pro-visionally in what he terms the kingdom of Protista^which is neither animal nor vegetable. But the monerais distinctly a living being, and possesses all the powersjust mentioned. When irritated, it contracts. Itmoves freely from place to place. It feeds itself in thesimplest possible manner, by actually get
. The Bible and science. uch a constitution as rendersit fit to serve as nutriment. To this structureless, protoplasmic mass the name ofmonera has been given by Haeckel. It is impossibleto say whether it belongs to the animal or the vegetablekingdom, and so this naturalist has placed it pro-visionally in what he terms the kingdom of Protista^which is neither animal nor vegetable. But the monerais distinctly a living being, and possesses all the powersjust mentioned. When irritated, it contracts. Itmoves freely from place to place. It feeds itself in thesimplest possible manner, by actually getting outside 120 ANIMAL KINGDOM. of the substance it is going to eat, the structurelessprotoplasm seeming, as it were, to flow over it. Assoon as it is digested the protoplasm opens out, andthe residue is ejected ; or rather, the protoplasm simplymoves away, leaving its refuse behind. It reproducesitself by simple division, each of the divided parts againgrowing anew. Moving upwards a step to the lowest division of the B. ^m-- u Fig. 52.—An amoeba figured at two different moments during Nucleus, i. Ingested food. Some vacuoles may also be noticed. Animal Kingdom, or Rhizopoda, we find that in atypical specimen such as the amoeba, the protoplasm,instead of being structureless, presents a nucleus, anda little vacuole, as it is termed. This appears to be acavity in the interior of the protof)lasm, filled withliuid, which alternately contracts and dilates, so thatthe fluid must be more or less driven throu^h theprotoplasmic mass. But there is still no protoplasm moves freely about, elongating itself EHIZOPODA. 121 in one direction and contracting in another, so that theform of the animal is never the same for two minutestogether. From the power of throwing out proto-plasmic arms or feet, called pseudopodia, possessed bythe amoeba and its congeners, the order to which itbelongs is named- Rhizopoda. The amoeba nourishesitself in the same way as the monera,
Size: 1508px × 1657px
Photo credit: © The Reading Room / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No
Keywords: ., bookcentury1800, bookdecade1880, booksubjectnaturalhistory, booky
