2 STATEMENT OF THE SUBJECT. 



and of life, its study is eminently adapted to enlarge our 

 ideas of creation and its Great Author. It makes known 

 to us the Plan of Creation, as exhibited in the highest 

 department of nature ; and thus we are led to know 

 more of Him who suffers not even a sparrow to fall with- 

 out his notice. 



The Animal Kingdom comprises all organized bodies 

 endowed with sensation and voluntary motion, --that is, 

 all organized bodies except plants. In addition to sen- 

 sation and voluntary motion, which depend upon special 

 systems of organs peculiar to animals, the nervous sys- 

 tem and the muscular system under its influence, there 

 are also other characteristics which belong exclusively 

 to members of the Animal Kingdom, and which show 

 still further the differences between them and plants. 

 All, or nearly all, animals possess a more or less well- 

 defined digestive cavity, and most of them other well- 

 defined cavities, which have special functions, or which 

 contain organs which have special functions. In plants, 

 the organs for special purposes are not concentrated 

 and placed in well-defined cavities, but are more or less 

 distributed over the body. Animals feed directly upon 

 plants, or upon other animals that feed upon plants. 

 Vegetation, on the contrary, is nourished by the mineral 

 kingdom. It is the chief province of the vegetable king- 

 dom to convert mineral substances earth and gases 

 into food upon which animals can subsist. In animals, 

 the food is received at once into the digestive cavity, 

 whence, after proper elaboration, it traverses and nour- 

 ishes the whole body. In plants, most of the fluids trav- 

 erse the whole extent of the body and branches before 

 reaching the foliage, where the process of elaboration is 

 carried on. In respiration, animals consume oxygen, and 

 give off carbonic acid, a gas poisonous, and, when abun- 

 dant, destructive to animal life ; while plants consume 



