TllK 



VEGETABLE KINGDOM 



VyHEN tlie Animal Kingdom is studied as a vast whole, and not merely 

 ' ^ in the highly-developed classes of Mammals, Birds, and Reptiles, the 

 natm-ahst perceives forms with which lie is most famihar gradually changing, 

 organs which are indispensable to the highest orders of Animals disappearing, 

 the limbs ceasing to be formed, all the internal structure of the body simpli- 

 fied, and, at last, nothing left but pulpy and seemingly shapeless masses, 

 such as inhabit shells. Let his power of vision be enlarged, and the 

 microscope discovers to his amazement, that the Animal Kingdom has not 

 ceased with the soft-bodied creatures at which his inquiry had stopped, but 

 that a new and vast field of observation opens before him, teeming with 

 myriads of forms, w^hich are, as it w^ere, the begimiing of another kingdom 

 of nature. Nevertheless, he soon finds that the smallness of the size of 

 these creatm-es is no hindrance to their possessing the peculiar attributes of 

 animal life. Though bones, and muscles, and external limbs, with veins, 

 arteries, and nerves, may have disappeared, or become too fine for human 

 vision, yet there is still left the animal motion, and the power of hunting for 

 prey, of feeding by a mouth and by the destruction of other species, which 

 is one of the great marks of animal structure. He sees that cells, 

 although so small that the acutest vision and the most powerful instruments 

 are alone sufiicient to detect them, are the recipients of a stomach, of eyes, 

 of a mouth. He perceives in such bodies all those elements of activity, by 

 which the Animal Kingdom is in general so well distinguished from the 

 passive Region of plants. 



And hence it is that those who deal in generals only, without descending 

 to particulars, pronounce with a voice of authority tliat the Animal and 

 Vegetable Kingdoms are sundered by decisive characteristics. The zoologist 

 declares that the power of spontaneous motion, and the feeding by a stomach, 

 are qualities confined to the Animal Kingdom. But numerous plants move 

 with all the appearance of spontaneity ; the spores of those Confcrva3 which 

 are sometimes called Zoosporous, swim in water with great activity ; the 

 filaments of Z^^gnemata combine with the energy of animal life ; and as for a 

 stomach, it is impossible to say, that the whole interior of a living indepen- 

 dent cell is not a stomach. Chemists once referred to the presence of nitrogen 

 as a certain characteristic of animals ; but plants abound in nitrogen. With 

 more reason they now appeal to the existence of starch in plants, an organic 

 compound unknown among the animal creation. And this is perhaps the 



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