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been obtained that the line between animal and plant existence 
can hardly be drawn. The greatest of our Microscopists, 
men with names of world-wide celebrity, have not able to 
determine where plant life ceases and animal life commences ; 
whether plants swimming freely in the water were not animals, 
and whether animals firmly rooted on stones or vegetable 
matter were not plants. 
Plants are found to be closely allied to animals in structure, 
organisation, and vital power. They are living bodies; they 
are the offspring of beings similar to themselves ; they grow, 
are endowed with excitability, or the power of being acted on 
by external stimuli, such as light, heat, &c., impelling them 
to the exertion of their vegetable power; they have their 
periods of infancy, adult age, decay and death. The truth of 
this you can test with your own Microscope, by procuring 
some specimens of the lower forms of plant life and placing 
them under the low power. 
As the present weather is not inviting for a walk to the 
Warren, or some favourite pond or ditch, armed with net or 
spoon wherewith to skim the surface of the water for the 
various scums, which, we so well know, are composed of the 
myriad forms of beautiful Diatoms and Desmids; if we can 
bring home no newt or small frog, in whose fin-like tail and 
webbed foot, we can view the process of the circulation of the 
blood (beautifully displayed) ; we can find nearer home, forms 
of life quite as interesting, giving us as deep an insight into 
the mighty secrets of the laboratory of Nature. Itis well said 
that ‘‘the vegetation which everywhere adorns the surface of 
the globe, from the moss that covers the weather-worn stone 
to the cedar that crowns the mountain top, is replete with 
matter for reflection. That not a flower or leaf that expands 
beneath the sunlight, but has something of habit, of structure, 
or of form to arrest the attention.” 
Though the origin of one-celled plants, of the laws which 
cause, as well as govern their reproduction, belongs to the 
higher walks of science, and is beyond the reach of the 
humble every-day Microscopist, like myself, the power of 
watching their various forms and functions, of being present 
at some interesting process, as it takes place beneath the eye, 
is not denied to the youngest tyro amongst us. This we can 
easily put to the proof, and since, as has been said, it is out 
