130 



ANIMAL. 



the species is represented, as they are confided 

 to one among vegetables, which is, therefore, 

 singly the type of its kind. In both classes, 

 indeed, there are exceptions to this general law : 

 the flowers of all vegetables do not contain 

 stamina and pistilla, or male and female organs, 

 neither are the opposite sexes invariably repre- 

 sented by two different individuals among 

 animals. In many plants the male organs are 

 known to exist in one flower, the female in 

 another, but both developed on the same 

 branch ; in many others, again, they exist on dif- 

 ferent stems, and are often evolved widely apart 

 from one another. In the same manner, many 

 of the lower tribes of animals include within 

 their individual organisms male and female 

 organs; this is the case with several tribes of 

 the genus mollusca, gasteropoda, the helix, 

 limax, and lepas, for instance, with the whole 

 of the extensive classes of the annelida, en- 

 tozoa, echinodermata, &c. 



But though there be resemblance to this 

 extent among vegetables and animals in regard 

 to organs, in the act by which fecundation 

 is accomplished there is a wide and essential 

 difference ; for whilst vegetables impregnate 

 themselves, or, rather, whilst the impregnation 

 of vegetables is a purely passive process, with- 

 out perception of or concurrence in its accom- 

 plishment on their parts, the pollen of the 

 anthers of those flowers that have male and 

 female organs being simply shed upon the 

 pistilla, the impregnation of animals, so far as 

 our knowledge goes, appears to be almost as 

 generally a consequence of a connexion be- 

 tween two different individuals, and of volition 

 with consciousness on their several parts. 

 Although many animals have both male and 

 female parts included within the same organism, 

 it would seem that comparatively few have the 

 power of impregnating themselves : two in- 

 dividuals of the like species meet, and give 

 and take reciprocally ; so that there is, in tact, 

 much less difference between the highest and 

 the lowest tribes of the animal kingdom in the 

 essentials by which races are continued, than 

 at first sight appears, much less certainly than 

 there is between the vegetables and animals 

 that are most nearly allied. The modes in 

 which fecundation takes place in vegetab'es at 

 large, and in an imals probably without exception, 

 are inherently and essentially distinct : an her- 

 maphrodite animal is still a very different thing 

 from an hermaphrodite flower. 



Another difference between vegetables and 

 animals, less important, indeed, but still in- 

 teresting, lies in the number of the organs pos- 

 sessed by each destined for the continuation of 

 the species. In many vegetables the organs 

 are single, one flower being taken as a repre- 

 sentative of the sexes ; in a much larger pro- 

 portion of plants, however, the organs are mul- 

 titudinous. Among animals, on the contrary, 

 with a few exceptions in the very lowest tribes, 

 the asterias, &c. where they are multidinous, 

 the essential male and female organs, the testes 

 and ovaria, exist singly or in pairs only. 



A third diversity, and one that is striking 



and almost universal, between those species of 

 plants and animals in which the sexes are 

 represented by two individuals, lies in the 

 difference of conformation, size, and general 

 character of the individuals in the one class, 

 and their perfect similarity in the other. There 

 are very few dioecious plants the males of 

 which are distinguishable from the females ; 

 there are very few tribes of animals, on the 

 contrary, in which the distinction of sex is not 

 extremely apparent, the males being generally 

 larger, stronger, and more courageous ; the 

 females smaller, more delicately formed, and 

 more timid in their disposition.* 



A fourth distinction which deserves to be 

 noted betwixt animals and vegetables is in the 

 diversity of the act by which the new being 

 is separated from the parent, and commences 

 its independent existence. The period at which 

 this happens, indeed, is determinate, and fixed 

 in both alike, but it is accompanied with con- 

 sciousness among animals, whilst it is alto- 

 together unwittingly accomplished among ve- 

 getables. 



From this review of the mode in which 

 animals and vegetables are called into being, 

 or of the acts which lead to their creation, the 

 main and most striking differences observable 

 in the two dasses are these : whilst in vegeta- 

 bles the whole of the acts that constitute re- 

 production, the union of the sexes, the fe- 

 cundation of the ovum, and the birth of the 

 new being are accomplished without the will 

 and without the consciousness of the indi- 

 vidual, but irresistibly and necessarily, they 

 are left in some particulars, at least, to the 

 will, and take place with the consciousness 

 of the individuals among animals. 



NUTRITION, or the acts by which the indi- 

 vidual is preserved. Every thing in nature 

 changes, and organized beings only con- 

 tinue their existence with their aptitudes 

 to manifest the acts that draw so wide a 

 line of demarcation between them and unor- 

 ganized bodies, by a perpetual renewal or le- 

 composition, and as incessant a rejection or 

 decomposition of their elements. Nutrition is, 

 therefore, at least, a two-fold act, implying 

 absorption or appropriation of nutritive matter, 

 and excretion or rejection of the old and worn- 

 out particles that have already served their 

 office in the economy : it consists, in fact, as 

 we have said, of an incessant decomposition 

 and reconstruction of the fabric of the living 

 organized being. Nutrition, however, is a very 

 comprehensive term, and includes the whole of 

 the vital acts by which the individual continues 



* One of the most striking exceptions to this law 

 occurs among some especially of the smaller species 

 of the birds of prey. In many of these the female 

 is much more powerful, heavier, and even more 

 courageous than the male. The care of the off- 

 spring, by one of nature's ordinances, devolving 

 principally upon the female, the supply of flesh 

 for the brood a supply procured by violence 

 might often have failed had she not in these 

 tribes been provided with superior strength and 

 courage to insure its regularity and abundance. 



