34 FOUR-FOOTED AMERICANS 



animal, as it is the first step from the vegetable to 

 the animal kingdom." 



" If it is so small and has so little body, how can 

 you tell it isn't a vegetable ? " asked Olive. 



" It is very difficult indeed to distinguish between 

 the lower forms of animal and vegetable life, and we 

 must leave the reason why to the Wise Men ; for it 

 puzzles them very often, and I could not explain it 

 without using long words." 



" Why, Uncle Roy," said Dodo, " I knoAV a real 

 simple reason, — animals can move and plants can't ! " 



"Wrong, missy; many of the lower animals cannot 

 move. The coral, for instance, and the oysters, are as 

 much fixtures as the geraniums in their pots over by 

 the window. 



" But to return to our animal tree. Besides having 

 no backbones, these lower animals have no hearts, 

 lungs, or brains ; they are not built around a bony 

 skeleton, as birds are or we ourselves. Their vital 

 parts are held in a single tube. These animals are 

 of various shapes and live in many ways and places, 

 — on the earth, in the water, and in mud. Among 

 the lower branches of the animal tree, you Avill find 

 things that are familiar to you, though you j)robably 

 never have thought what they were, whether animals 

 or vegetables. 



*' To repeat all the names, even of the animals that 

 belong on each branch, would confuse and tire you 

 sadly, so I will only tell you of some of the principal 

 kinds that you are most likely to see, to act as steps, so 

 to speak, by Avhich you may climb to the branch where 

 our four-footed Americans live. 



