What are Animals and Plants ? 359 



living creatures devoid of sense and, for the most part, 

 ted to the ground.' 



Now, this is really a very good answer, as far as it goes, 

 d truly expresses the distinction existing between the 



I' Qmense majority of the two groups of living things. Never- 

 leless, here again the discovery of fresh phenomena has 

 rought us face to face with difficulties and puzzles, some of 

 hich seem, as yet, insoluble. 

 To put as shortly as possible what appears to be the out- 

 toe of modern scientific progress, it has, on the one hand, 

 served to render more marked the distinction between living 

 beings and creatures devoid of life ; while, on the other hand, 

 it has contiQually made more and more evident that (in spite 

 of the distinctions between most of them) animals and plants 

 form one great whole, and must be scientifically treated 

 together, as well as separately. 



Thus, to the two sciences of zoology and botany, which 

 refer to animals and plants respectively, we have now added 

 a fresh science, the science of Biology, which treats of animals 

 and plants taken together, collectively, as forming one great 

 group. 



That the reader may have some faint notion how vast 

 this great group is, it may be well hastily to survey the main 

 classes of creatures which together compose it. We think it 

 desirable to do so, because very inadequate images are apt to 

 rise before the minds of most persons unacquainted with 

 natural science, when they use such words as ' animals ' and 

 ' plants,' since they naturally think most of those Avith which 

 they are the most familiar. 



Thus, they are familiar with certain beasts, birds, reptiles, 

 and fishes, but know little about the number of them. Of birds, 

 ten thousand distinct kinds are known, and upwards of four 

 thousand kinds of Hzards, and sixteen hundred kinds of 

 snakes have been described ; while fishes are so rich in 



