"Conjugation occurs sometimes, but it is unlike the conjugation of Paramœcium in two important points: Firstly, the conjugation is between two dissimilar forms; an ordinary large-stalked form, and a much smaller free-swimming form which has originated by repeated division of a large form. Secondly, the union of the two is a complete and permanent fusion, the smaller being absorbed into the larger. This permanent fusion of a small active cell with a relatively large fixed cell, followed by division of the fused mass, presents a striking analogy to the process of sexual reproduction occurring in higher animals."
OTHER PROTOZOA
Besides the Amœba, Paramœcium, and Vorticella there are thousands of other Protozoa. Most of them live in water, but a few live in damp sand or moss, and some live inside the bodies of other animals as parasites. Of those which live in water some are marine, while others are found only in fresh-water streams and lakes.
Fig. 9.—Sun animalcule, a fresh-water protozoan with a siliceous skeleton, and long thread-like protoplasmic prolongations. (From life.)
Form of body.—The Protozoa all agree in having the body composed for its whole lifetime of a single cell,[7] but they differ much in shape and appearance. Some of them are of the general shape and character of Amœba, sending out and retracting blunt, finger-like pseudopodia, the body-mass itself having no fixed form or outline but constantly changing. Others have the body of definite form, spherical, elliptical, or flattened, enclosed by a thin cuticle, and having a definite number of fine thread-like or hair-like protoplasmic prolongations called flagella or cilia. Many of the familiar Protozoa of the fresh-water ponds always have two whiplash-like flagella projecting from one end of the body. By means of the lashing of these flagella in the water the tiny creature swims about. Others have many hundreds of fine short cilia scattered, sometimes in regular rows, over the body-surface. The Protozoan swims by the vibration of these cilia in the water.
