204 GENERAL ZOOLOGY 



growing complexity of the central nervous system as the animal 

 scale is ascended, lies in its function of integration. A large 

 animal without an adequate nervous system would be merely a 

 mass of protoplasm incapable of finely coordinated activities. 

 The nervous system, with its ramifications connecting various 

 parts of the body with each other and with the brain and spinal 

 cord, provides a mechanism for coordination that brings about 

 an integrative effect, so that activities of widely separated parts 

 of the body function as parts of a whole. 



