10 LIFE ON THE EARTH. 



suit the sunny flight of the eagle, the twilight 

 mousing of the owl, the brousing of the ruminant, 

 the nocturnal watch of the lion ; the watery life 

 of the whale, or the fish, where the different re- 

 fractive power of the fluid in which they live is 

 accompanied by modifications, not alike in each, 

 but yet alike in the manifestation of intentional 

 adaptation. Consider in the same point of view 

 the large orbit of Ichthyosaurus with its broad cir- 

 clet of sclerotic bones ; or the reticulated lenses 

 of the Trilobite ; or finally, the black or red spots 

 sensitive only to light in the Mollusca and Radiata ; 

 or scrutinize in the same way any other organ of 

 sense, in the animals of every age, and inquire with 

 the Psalmist: 



He who planted the ear, shall He not hear? 

 He who made the eye, shall He not see? 



Life runs always the same course of growth, 

 decay and death, in the individual always the same 

 course of renewal by offspring, after a definite mode 

 which varies with the different kinds of living beings. 

 One of these modes seems to deserve separation from 

 the rest, under the title of fissiparism, because in 

 it the individual seems divided, and so the number 

 of individuals multiplied. This obtains among the 

 Polyparian Zoophyta, and may be paralleled among 

 many plants, and artificially exemplified by cuttings. 



