THE PROCESSES OF LIFE IN PLANTS AND ANIMALS. 249 
them to remain for some hours, and then transfers them to methy- 
lated spirit, where they remain as long as the colour comes out. 
By this process beautiful specimens had been obtained without the 
shrinking which always occurs in the nitric acid process. Messrs. 
R. and J. Beck, 68, Cornhill, supply the stain, either in crystals or 
solution, ready for use. 
THE PROCESSES OF LIFE IN PLANTS AND 
ANIMALS. 
HE monthly lecture of the Windsor and Eton Scientific Society 
was delivered on Wednesday, the 11th July, when, in the 
absence of the President, who was on the Continent, Colonel 
Baron de Rottenberg, C.B., took the chair, and introduced Mr. 
P. H. Carpenter, M.A. The subject was, “ The Processes of Life 
in Plants and Animals.” 
Mr. Carpenter said that he had promised Mr. Gooch, who 
described the Dionea at the last monthly meeting, to say a few 
words on the electrical changes which take place in plants; but 
circumstances prevented his being present, and he had been 
induced to give a lecture that night. Mr. Carpenter then pro- 
ceeded to explain the peculiarities connected with the processes of 
life in animals and plants. The contraction of muscle and that 
of simple protoplasm differ, inasmuch that while simple proto- 
plasm can contract or expand indifferently in any direction, the 
movement of the muscle is confined to one direction. The loco- 
motive power of both animal and plant protoplasm may be 
separated into three kinds of movement :—1st, the Amceboid 
movement, so called, because it is typically shown in the Amceba 
or Proteus animalcule. This motion consists in the throwing out 
and retracting of blunt finger-like processes of sarcode. These 
pseudopodia, or “false-feet” can be projected indiscriminately 
from any part of the body substance—znd, a streaming movement. ° 
This occurs in the perforate Foraminifera, the sarcode streaming 
out of one pore over the shell, and along any spines or excrescences 
which may be developed upon it, and through another pore into 
the interior mass of protoplasm, carrying with it any nutritious 
particles which it may have gathered while flowing over the surface 
of the shell.—3rd, a ciliary movement. This is a lashing motion 
of long delicate cilia or eyelash-like processes of protoplasm, which 
are more or less abundantly developed on the surface of all 
infusoria. The common slipper-animalcule, or Paramecium, is 
