84 Proceedings, 



in size, and this is known as growth ; and even when their 

 full size has been attained, the waste caused by the wear and 

 tear of living has — at any rate in the case of animals — to be 

 made up for. This shows, then, that our principal object in 

 life is to get something to eat. We can have no doubt that 

 hunger is felt by every living thing, animal and vegetable 

 alike, and now we come to the first of the landmarks from 

 which I propose to start my sketch of the Differences of 

 Animals. 



In the process of eating, living things take in food. Plants 

 take it in by their roots and leaves, and it increases their size 

 under the influence of sunlight. But if animals simply took 

 their food into their mouths and stood in the sunshine, they 

 might wait a long time before they derived any benefit from 

 it. So most animals are provided with a different piece of 

 machinery, to digest their food, to that with which plants are 

 furnished. 



Of the five senses, we have three which are of great im- 

 portance in enabling the animal to feed — seeing, smelling, 

 and tasting. 



But now I want to introduce to you an animal which finds 

 its food without the aid of eyes, chooses it without the help of 

 a nose, eats and digests it without any mouth, stomach or 

 intestine, and moves about without being provided with limbs ; 

 and, as far as we can make out, it has neither nerves, brain, 

 nor muscles of any kind. It is simply a tiny living body, and 

 goes by the name of Arnceba, or the Proteus animalcule ; it 

 looks like a very small particle of glue or jelly, and lives in 

 stagnant water. Inside the Amaha we can distinguish a dark 

 dot, which is called a nucleus ; and sometimes a transparent 

 spot appears, which keeps disappearing and forming again ; 

 we do not know what its object is, biit it may act as a 

 breathing-organ. When not at rest, if it wants to move 

 along, it pushes out a blunt finger from some part of its 

 body, and when this has reached a certain length the body 

 itself crawls after the finger ; if the finger touches something 

 eatable, it wraps it up, so to speak, in its jelly, and the body 

 then comes up and encloses both finger and eatable. When 



