214 



LIVING PLANTS 



Modern 

 opinions 



An intermed- 

 iate kingdom 



rifera and Coelenterates as its foundation to 

 make it acceptable to some students of the 

 present day. 



The citation of a few opinions held b3" 

 modern savants regarding the ultimate dis- 

 tinction between animals and plants, although 

 necessarily brief and without the setting which 

 the authors considered the justification for 

 their conclusions, 

 will indicate how 

 numerous and 

 vain have been the 

 attempts to find 

 some character of 

 universal diag- 

 nostic value. To 

 some minds the 



, 1 /• ■, Fiff. 24. — A mycetozoan (Arcyria 



tasK oi pf operiy ^j^^^^^) jj^ ^j,^ ^gj,^jj^g j,^j^^g^^^^^.jjg^i 



placing the ani- to bark. Part of the spore masses 



< 1-1 1 . removed, leaving their bases. En- 



mal-UKe plants j^^g^^i ^hree diameters. (After Engler 



and plant-like an- ami Pranti.) 

 inials has been 



well enough disposed of In' creating an 

 intermediate kingdom. This was first done 

 by the Englishman Wotton at the beginning 

 of the active period that followed the intel- 

 lectual stupor of the middle ages. In his 

 work on the distinguishing characters of 

 animals, '^De differentiis animalium," pub- 



