SYMBIOSIS 17 



relations between animal protoplasm and plant protoplasm. 

 Nor is it accurate to say that the animal requires the same food 

 substances as the plant. It certainly does not require the same 

 raw material as the plant ; it only though very indispensably 

 requires some of the finished products which the plant has to 

 offer in virtue of its position in biological symbiosis. 



The aphorism, if it is to be interpreted otherwise than in 

 the scriptural sense, can only mean that without the labour and 

 the capital of the green cells and their wonderful bio-economic 

 adequacy, there could have been no flesh. But flesh is not for 

 this reason literally grass, nor, fortunately, are the two sub- 

 stances interchangeable. An ox could teach us better, for it 

 would not accept flesh as a substitute for grass. 



Moreover, in point of literal truth, such vegetable reserve 

 food-material as mentioned by Prof. Keeble, e.g., starch, oil, 

 and nitrogenous substances contained in seeds, tubers, and 

 other storage-organs of plants, are well capable of building up 

 and maintaining (animal) " flesh " without any need of grass. 

 Nay, it stands to reason that it is to the advantage of the 

 .animal to adapt its wants to the actual reserve-products of the 

 plant rather than habitually consume those indispensable green 

 cells which are the very foundation of all organic wealth. Nor 

 can any organism afford to transgress for any length of time 

 against the principle of bio-economic utility which is here 

 involved, and which requires mutual give and take and mutual 

 forbearance. Nunquam aliud natura, aliud sapientia dicit. 

 This, in my view, is absolutely fundamental. 



That the animal, by transgressing, by becoming a 

 " Pflanzen-Raubtier," for instance, is apt to kill the goose 

 that lays the golden eggs is well known in practice, from the 

 case of certain ruminants browsing too closely and destroying 

 the vegetation of a whole district, and is also borne out, as we 

 shall presently see, by the case of the plant-animals under 

 consideration. 



That disaster must inevitably follow all kindred trans- 

 gressions on the part of animals, whose main reliance must 



