LONDON INSECTS 67 



forred by learned men, who have spent their lives in 

 studying them, brevet rank as animals, mix in undis- 

 tinguishable confusion with so-called vegetables which 

 move and act as thinking beings. 



They are the lowest class of the third great natural 

 order, the Articulata, the jointed animals which have 

 their supports answering to a skeleton outside, not like 

 boned animals, inside the soft fleshy parts. 



Below the Insects stands the whole order of the 

 Radiata star-fishes, etc., which, made in rays running 

 out from a centre like the spokes of a wheel from the 

 axle, give the order its name coral makers, animal 

 flowers and jellies, and tiny revolving wheels and balls. 



Below, or side by side with, the Insects, according to 

 the point of view from which we may prefer to look at 

 them, stand Crabs and Lobsters and Worms, and above 

 them, Spiders. 



Above these stands, with its many subdivisions, the 

 order of the Molluscs. Soft-bodied boneless creatures, 

 with a perfect system of circulation of blood, such as it 

 is, colourless stuff. Never 'articulated' or jointed like 

 the class below, with endless varieties, from the Slugs 

 and Snails which give London gardeners opportunities 

 enough of studying the family in its humblest members 

 up to the Cuttlefish and the Nautilus 



' The sea-born sailor of a shell canoe.' 



Higher still comes the noblest order of the Back- 

 bones running through all its grades Fish, Reptiles, 

 Birds, and Beasts, till actual knowledge is brought to a 

 full stop for the present at Man. 



