128 SEA-SIDE STUDIES. 



ence. "Who lias been fortunate enough to see the 

 Animal? We have seen cows, cats, jackasses, and 

 camelopards ; but the "rare monster" Animal is visible 

 in no menagerie. If you are tempted to call this me- 

 taphysical trifling, I beg you to read the discussions 

 published on the vegetable or animal nature of 

 Diatomacese, Volvocinae, &c., or to attend to what is 

 said in any text-book on the distinctions betw^een 

 animals and vegetables ; and you will then see there is 

 something more than metaphysics in the paradox. In 

 the simpler organisms there is no mark which can 

 absolutely distinguish the animal from the vegetable ; 

 and if in the higher organisms a greater amount of 

 characteristic diff'erences may be traced, so that we 

 may, for purposes of convenience, consider a certain 

 group of indications as entitling the object to be classed 

 under the Animal division, we must never forget that 

 such classifications are purely arbitrary, and as the phi- 

 losophers say — subjective. 



Now what are the characteristic marks of the Sea- 

 Anemone, w^hich entitle it to be removed from the 

 hands of the botanist, and placed in those of the zoolo- 

 gist ? Eymer Jones declares that its animal nature " is 

 soon rendered evident," this evidence being the mani- 

 festation of sensibility, '' A cloud veiling the sun will 

 cause their tentacles to fold as though apprehensive of 

 danger from the passing shadows." Unhappily, the fact 

 alleged is a pure fiction ; and, were it true, would not 

 distinguish the Actiniae from those plants which close 

 their petals in the dark. A fiction, however, it is, as 



