336 Mr. Macleay on certain general Laws regulating [Nov. 



the Echinus, the Asterias, and the Priapulus have all their 

 representatives in mycology, of which the genera Lycoperdon 

 and Fhallus are noted instances; so that the analogy of the 

 Radiated animals to Fungi is complete ; and we thus have in 

 organized matter the following two series of groups connected 

 by affinity and analogous at their corresponding pomts. 



Animalia. Vegeta3ilia. 



Acrita Protophyta. 



Radiata Hysterophyta. 



Annulosa Monocotyledonea. 



Vertebrata Dicotyledonea. 



Mollusca Pseudo-cotyledonea?ul^fifrc?A.* 



Consequently some general idea of the primary distribution 

 of all organized beings may be obtained from the following 

 figure. 



• This last department of the vegetable kingdom, Pseudo-coti/ledonea^ has been de- 

 fined by M. Agardh in the sixth part of his Aphorismi Botanici, which is dated Dec. 

 1821. According to him it embraces the Musci, Ilcpatico! and Fi7ices of Linnaeus ; 

 and in p. 76 of the same work we find a comparison made between these plants and 

 Amphibia^ which is nevertlieless much stronger when applied to them and the Mol- 

 lusca. " Pseudo-cotyledoneae Amphibiis non dissimiles, humum perreptant vel rimas 

 quaerunt, humiditateque gaudent ut ilia, organis jam in superiore sectione deperditis 

 iterum instnictaE;." In these last words he alludes to his own opinion, that Mosses dis- 

 play organs nearly related to the cotyledons of dicotyledonous plants, while the monoco- 

 tyledonous plants conceal their cotyledon ; and if botanists should adopt this opinion, 

 we might assimilate it to tlie curious fact, that in the animal kingdom the imperfectly 

 organized Mollusca display a heart, which is more analogous to that of the Vertebrata 

 than the dorsal vessel of insects. With respect, indeed, to the analogies existing between 

 the animal and vegetable kingdoms, they are too striking to have altogether escaped the 

 notice of such an observer as Agardh, who trxily observes, " Memorabilis est analogia 

 evolutionis seriei vegetabilis cum animali." When we find him, however, comparing 

 the least perfect vegetables to some of the most perfect animals, the Algcs to Fishes, and 

 the Lichenes to Insects, we must suspect that he is not sufficiently acquainted with the 

 evolution of the animal series, and conclude that he has at least not sufficiently attended 

 to the parallelism of analogy. Nevertheless, his comparison of Monocotyledonous, or, 

 as he terms them, of Cryptocotyledonous Plants to Birds, appears to be a true relation 

 of analogy, although an indirect one ; and if he had paid that attention to Entomology 

 which tlie science really merits, so acute a botanist, could not have failed to perceive, 

 that the arguments he gives in support of this last analogy, only receive their full force 

 when they are employed in the comparison of Monocotyledonous Plants with Insects. 

 Thus, in the same page, he states aeriferous cells to be peculiar to Birds in the animal 

 kingdom, evidently not aware that many more animals than are in the whole department 

 of Fertebraia would have no means of getting their fluids aerated did not the air enter 

 their bodies and penetrate through every part of them. But on this head Desfontaines 

 long since set the scientific world at rest, when he established the relation of Dicotyledo- 

 nous Plants to Vertebrata^ and of Monocotyledonous Plants to Annulosa., not on exter- 

 nal appearance merely, but on such primary principles of their respective structures, 

 that we may almost term the former tribe of plants Vertebrated, and the latter Annu- 

 lose. it would scarcely be fair however towards M. Agardh, did we conceal the fact of 

 his being perfectly aware of the analogies which reign both between the Dicotyledonous 

 Plants and the typical group of Vertebrata, and between the Fungi and Radiata. 

 With respect to this last analogy, indeed the following words are perhaps more explicit 

 than those previously publishe<l, p. IsJll of the Hora: Entoviologica:—''^ Fungi supe- 

 riores animalia Radiata ob figuram radiantem, ob superficiem nudam, ob texturam 

 laxam, ob colorem subsimileni non male revocant." 



