South Bend news-times. (South Bend, Ind.) 1913-1938, 1915-02-21
LOWEST FORM OF
LIFE ON DISPLAY
Exhibits at American Museum
of Natural History in Central
Park Form Most Astonishing
Collection.
RN Garrett p. Seryi,s.

BY Garrett L. SerViss.
Among the most astonishing eXhi-
billions in the American Museum of
Natural History in Central park are
those representing the lowest forms
| Of animal life, such as various kinds
| of prOtozOans. radiolarians. sponges,
etc
The fact is that many of the ex-
/ hibits really are models in glass or
wax, carefully copied and colOred
after nature and used because the
actual animals are either too delicate
or too minute TO be permanently pre-
served or placed on exhibition. Some
| of the creatures belong TO the micro
| scopic world, and the models are mag
nifed hundred OF q thousand times,
showing them as the naturalist sees
/ them under his microscope.
! But this fact only adds TO the inter-
/ est of the curious visitor and increases
/ his wonder, because he perceiVes that
/ within a space which to the naked
/ eye would hardly be larger than the
point of a pin the life forces have
/ found room to build up an organiza-
ton almost as complicated in its de-
tails as if there had been unlimited
/ room TO work in. The highest magni-
/ fication brings into sight new perfec-
tiOns, but is unable TO reveal any
where a lack of finish.
! An elaborate piece of frost-work
/ jewelfy might bear close resem-
! blance to some of these animals, but
! If the jewelry were put under a micro
| scope it's ragged and unfinished edges
| corners and surfaces would go far TO
destroy it's beauty. On the other hand.
| the protozoans show no such imper-
/ fections Of workmanship.
The mystery of life is redoubled
when one looks at these strange forms
! in which Il has manifested itself. The
| prOtozoans constitute a part of the
| animal kingdom, which is so different
/ in its fundamental organization from
the part to which we belong that at
nrst sight there might seem to be no
community between them. The word
protozoaH means literally, first" or
Lowest animal" a prOtoZOan con-
sists essentially of a single living cell.
It seems to stand near the parting of
the ways which lead TO plants in one
direction and TO animals i'm the other
They are marine animals, and that
fact is part of the evidence that
life on the earth began in the sea.
But the greatest marvel about these
low forms of life is that as Prof. H.
B. Ward says, their physiological
completely is as striking as their
structural simplicity" which means
that although they consist of only a
single cell, while the higher animals
one cell performs all the essential life
functions that in the other animals
are discharged through the agency
of a multitude OF cells
Instead Of the various tissues and
organs of the higher animals, the pro-
tOzoans have only notifications, or
differentiations Of their single cell,
which serve in the place of regular
organs. They eat and drink and di-
gest their food, they move about more
or less freely. they reproduce their
kind, and all this is accomplished
without the possession of the cOmpli-
Gated system of special organs that
the higher animals employ.
Many prOtozoans live i'm colonies,
in which great numbers of the single
celled animals are united. This does
not effect the simplicity of their in
dividual organization. But among the
cells of such colonies there are often
to be found indications of the begin
ming of differentiatiOns which mark
an advance in the direction of the
multicellular organization of the met
azOans.
In an Illuminated window, in Oar
! win hail. showing a partly under
water view of an old wharf pile. there
/ are to be seen creatures which, al
though more highly organized than
the protozoans, exhibit very striking
! ly the possibilities of an animal whose
/ body is only a kind of bag. These
are called ''sea-quirts," and some of
| the larger species of them, clinging TO
I the pile, in the midst of a crowded
/ assemblage of other forms of plant
/ like animals. look like miniature
copies of Oriental "wine-skins," with
two spOut-like openings. 1t may be
/ said that the whole active life of this
creature is consumed in allowing a
stream of food-bearing water to enter
| its sac-like body by way Of one of the
SiphOns, or sprouts, and TO leave it by
\ the other. while the interior Of the sac
digests the nOurishment.
/ And now comes something TO make
\ the most thOughtless observer pause
and ponder. These sack-like sea-
squirts, or ascidians. are, as Mr.. Roy
| W. Miner says, actually primitive
members of the chOrdate group, which
I includes the vertebrates and culmi-
mates in mani"
Their ancestors seem to have start
their footing This story is told by
| the metamorphOsis which every asci-
/ dian undergoes in its life develop
ment. IL begins as a free swimming
animal. has a tail, an eye, a brain
and central nervous system, and a
"cartilaginous prototype Of a back
\ bone" But as it nears maturity il
/ becomes attached TO some stationary
object. its brain" and special sense
organs degenerate and break up and
\ the animal becomes virtually a mere
/ digestive and reproductive machine"