CREEPING CANDA. 217 



plant and an animal, down in these low regions of the 

 organic scale, is not a matter of course ; it is not a 

 thing to be decided by a glance at the general physi- 

 ognomy. These are animals, an't please you ; truly 

 sentient, conscious, wilful animals ; as truly (I do not 

 say as obviously) as that new-born lamb, whose caudal 

 wriggle is the outward expression of inward rapture. 



It is true that, on looking carefully over the patches, 

 you discern no signs of animal life, nor of ordinary 

 animal form. Take one of the least complex thickets. 

 We trace the whole matted mass to a common origin 

 the springing of a slender stem from a number of 

 diverging roots firmly adherent to the black surface of 

 the Oarweed : this stem soon forks, and the branches 

 so formed fork again and again, spreading themselves 

 out, and crossing each other. These ramified stems 

 are of a dull-drab or pale-brown hue, just like withered 

 plants ; and their whole extent is beset with tiny 

 angular projections, like imperfectly-developed sheath- 

 ing leaves, such as we see on many plants, the 

 broomrape, for example. The shrub has a creeping 

 character, spreading over the surface, and here and 

 there adhering, like a bed of verbenas that have been 

 pegged down : and, as if to add to the resemblance 

 and make the plant-like character perfect, you per- 

 ceive, on looking carefully, that, at these points of 

 contact, the branches have shot down rootlets, which 

 have ramified and spread themselves over the sur- 

 rounding area, adhering very firmly to the surface of 

 the frond, which constitutes their soil. 



