CHAPTER VI. 



A VIEW IN PERSPECTIVE. (CONTINUED.) 



Soft-Bodied A nimals. 



LOOKING at the animal kingdom as a whole, we 

 are now in position to trace something like a general 

 outline of its history. Life appeared, very probably, 

 before the land was fit for habitation, and conse- 

 quently all animals were marine ; at all events, it is 

 certain that the earliest animals lived in the ocean. 

 Now, drawing our conclusions from the study of 

 embryology and comparative anatomy, we learn that 

 the earliest animals were soft-bodied, and were pro- 

 vided with no hard parts for defence or protection. 

 Their method of defence was probably the same as 

 that of the low soft-bodied animals of to-day. The 

 smaller forms were endowed with marvellous insensi- 

 bility to injury, and with great powers of multiplica- 

 tion. Cutting them to pieces simply caused their 

 multiplication, and this power of resisting injury 

 served in the place of protective organs. The larger 

 forms, like Ccelentera, were provided with stinging 

 hairs for defence, and they also possessed remarkable 

 powers of recovery from injury. Having no sup- 

 porting organs, they were never large animals, but 

 they doubtless filled the early seas in abundance. 



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