CLASSIFICATION. . 7 



touch, does it not feel ? The flower that shuts its 

 bells as evening comes, and seems to go to sleep, is 

 it insensitive ? We cannot tell. 



To move from place to place, to have the power of 

 locomotion, has been said to be an attribute of 

 animals, whereby they are distinguishable. Yet 

 although we see the Volvox* (Tig. 1), rolling through 





Fig. 1.— volvox. 



the drop that forms its space with slow majestic 

 movement, wielding upon its surface countless living 

 filaments, we are forced to believe the chemist w^ho 

 informs us that it is a vegetable. t 



If we take a drop of water from any stagnant pool 

 and place it under a microscope, w^e shall soon per- 

 ceive that it contains a great variety of living 

 organisms, very diverse in their shape, and all equally 



* Volvo, I roll 



t The Vol vox globator, of which a figure is given in the text, is 

 acknowledged to be a vegetable jji-oduction. In shape it seems a 

 microscopic globe, rolling slowly on its axis. More accurately- 

 examined, we perceive the body to be formed of a transparent 

 spherical membrane, studded with small green dots, and having all 

 its surface covered over with vibrating filaments of infinite minute- 

 ness, which produce currents in the surrounding water, and thus 

 cause the revolution of the little sphere, as well as its progression. 



