244 LEISURE.TIME STUDIES. 



endowed with a common life, constitutes the only phase of 

 their nature in which any comparison whatever is permissible. 

 But if we reflect, even in the most casual manner, on 

 the extent of the knowledge of nature which ordinary life 

 requires and demands, we at once perceive that our powers 

 of comparing animals and plants possess no very extensive 

 range. Our observation is of necessity limited to the higher 

 animals and plants, the differences between which are cer- 

 tainly of the most pronounced kind ; and we are conversely 

 unable, without the assistance of science, to determine if 

 these distinctions hold good universally, and if we are able 

 invariably, from the appearance of lower forms of life, to 

 indicate their exact nature. An appeal to the naturalist 

 respecting the latter point would result in. our being in- 

 formed that, so far from the separation of animals from 

 plants being an easy matter, the construction of a plain, 

 thorough definition of either the animal or plant form is 

 simply an impossibility in the present state of science. 

 Whilst the accumulated evidence of past years clearly points 

 to the recognition of a certain territory in the world of life, 

 belonging to neither the animal nor plant world alone, but 

 formed apparently of beings which, in a strange and con- 

 fusing fashion, unite the characters of the one great group 

 of living beings with those of the neighbouring creation. 

 That there actually exists in living nature a veritable " no 

 man's land," a portion of territory in which the lower roots 

 of the great trees of animal and plant life may be said to 

 merge in a confusing identity of substance, form, and function, 

 is a notable fact. And it is equally true, that, regarding 

 the vast majority of the organisms included in this territory, 

 science is unable at the present time even to suggest the 

 means whereby the dissolution of this intermediate kingdom 

 may be effected. Some authorities, indeed, struck with the 

 apparent hopelessness of separating the animal from the 

 plant world, have proposed to recognise the stable and per- 

 manent nature of the " no man's land " of the naturalist ; 

 and the name Regnum Protisticum has been duly proposed 



