HALF HOURS WITH INSECTS. 



1, Itisects xxi tbx) Grarden, 



ANIMAL and plant life are mutually dependent. Each 

 has a starting point from a simple cell — ''the struc- 

 tural unit of the entire organized world." The zoologist and 

 the botanist, ordinarily travelling in separate realms, seem to 

 meet on common ground while studying the lowest represen- 

 tatives of their respective groups. Indeed some one has com- 

 pared the animal and vegetable kingdoms to two mountain 

 peaks of unequal height, whose adjoining bases rise from an 

 elevated table land. The naturalist discerns below a won- 

 derful simplicity and agreement in the scenes around him ; for 

 life is there manifested in the simplest geometrical forms, and 

 there is no distinction between animals and plants. But as he 

 mounts farther up one or the other of tiie ascents, his interest 

 is continually excited by the numberless modifications of the 

 simple forms beneath him, and while he finds the loftier ele- 

 vation teeming with the myriad forms of animal life, yet 

 there constantly occur to him hints and analogies connecting 

 the most complex and highly endowed organizations with the 

 humblest forms he left below. 



The question whether animals may not be spontaneously 

 produced still remains an open one ; while the discovery of 

 the aquarium wiiich reveals to us the delicate balance exist- 

 ing between animal and vegetable life, and also the alleged 

 necessity of the direct agency of insects in the fertilization 



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