72 LIFE AND HABIT. 



tube. The extended tentacles soon spread themselves 

 over the bottom of the saucer and lay hold of whatever 

 comes in their way, ' all being fish that comes to their 

 net,' and in half an hour or thereabouts the new house 

 is finished, though on a very rude and artificial type. 

 Now here the organisation is far higher ; the instru- 

 mentality obviously serves the needs of the animal and 

 suffices for them ; and we characterise the action, on 

 account of its uniformity and apparent ?mintelligence, 

 as instinctive." 



No comment will, one would think, be necessary to 

 make the reader feel that the difference between the 

 terebella and the amoeba is one of degree rather than 

 kind, and that if the action of the second is as 

 conscious and reasonable as that, we will say, of a bird 

 making her nest, the action of the first should be so 

 also. It is only a question of being a little less 

 skilful, or more so, but skill and intelligence would 

 seem present in both cases. Moreover, it is more 

 clever of the terebella to have made itself the limbs 

 with which it can work, than of the amoeba to be able 

 to work without the limbs ; and perhaps it is more 

 sensible also to want a less elaborate dwelling, provided 

 it is sufficient for practical purposes. But whether 

 the terebella be less intelligent than the amceba or not, 

 it does quite enough to establish its claim to intelli- 

 gence of a higher order ; and one does not see ground 

 for the satisfaction which Dr. Carpenter appears to 

 find at having, as it were, taken the taste of the 

 amoeba's performance out of our mouth, by setting us 

 about the less elaborate performance of the terebella, 



