SOME MOOT POINTS IN NATURAL HISTORY. 249 



form which can well be conceived. When this, or any other 

 zoophyte is examined, it is seen to grow from a well-defined 

 root, and to bear on its branches numerous little animals, 

 which represent the leaves, as it were, of this strange animal 

 tree. The hundreds of animals which enter into the forma- 

 tion of a single zoophyte form in reality a connected colony 

 of beings, whose interests are of identical kind, and which 

 co-operate in the most perfect manner to ensure the growth 

 and sustenance of the colony at large. Nor does the like- 

 ness to the plant cease with the mere details of outward 



FIG. 36. Zoophytes . b and d are magnified portions of a and c respectively. 



form. If we watch the progress of events in zoophyte- 

 history, we shall find the resemblance to include deeper and 

 more intricate phases. Thus, as the leaves of the tree 

 wither and fall, and are duly replaced by new leaves, which 

 the tree as a whole has the power of producing, so in the 

 zoophyte there is continual loss of substance and death of 

 its component parts. The little animals of the colony are 

 constantly dying off; but the process of budding, which 

 produced the compound colony at first, is also competent to 

 repair the losses which the mere act of living appears to 

 entail in the zoophyte as in every other living organism. 



