Ted Silver, Age 15, Of Philadelphia, Penna., for his question:

How does the amoeba get his food?

This small miracle is one of the protozoa animals. He manages to carry on all the processes of life with a single ce11; and. Even if he is a giant among amoebas, the miniature creature is barely big enough for our eyes to see. He looks like a shapeless white blob, and the amazing processes which go in his little body must be seen under a microscope.

The amoeba and his assorted relatives teem in our creeks and fresh water streams. The microscope shays him to be a clear and shapeless blob of jelly sprinkled throughout with granules and miniature droplets. Tie blob of jelly is protoplasm, and the entire surface is sheathed in the finest of delicate cell membranes.

In real life, the shapeless amoeba is forever on the move, seeking for food. A finger of 3elly called a pseudopod streams out from the shapeless blob, and part of the soft ce11 follows along behind it. Two or more pseudopods poke out in different directions, and the amoeba changes its shape. As this happens, the tiny blob of jelly moves along.

The pseudopods, meaning phony feet, have other duties besides moving the amoeba from place to place. The little amoeba has no sense of smell or taste, but he can tell which scraps of debris are good to eat. When a pseudopod touches a tiny alga plant or a microscopic water animal, other pseudopods move in for the kill. The tiny victim is soon engulfed with pseudopods coming from above and below and from all sides.

Now the miniature morsel is wrapped inside the body of the amoeba. As a rule, a drop of water is also engulfed with the food and together they form a small pocket called a food vacuole. This food vacuole is actually a temporary stomach, and digestion begins at once.

The nourishment from the food passes out into the jellified body of the amoeba, where it is used to carry on the processes of life. The scraps of indigestible food a're left in the vacuole which gradually works its way to the surface of the amoeba. There it seeps through the surface membrane, and the waste material is left behind. A well fed amoeba has several food vacuoles with pockets of food at various stages of digestion.

The amoeba feeds on all types of microscopic water dwellers, both animal and vegetable. Much of its meat is snaller protozoa; and compared with the entire body of the amoeba, some of these midgets are no bigger than a hand. It also engulfs and digests bacteria, single celled aglae and other miniature scraps of animal and vegetable material found afloat in the water.