PLANT ANIMALS. 7 



and is a very charming thing to see. The birds, 

 of course, are an illusion ; but on one of the 

 species Zootliamnium arbmcula there is really 

 fruit. It has all the appearance of fruit as seen on 

 an ordinary tree, and it answers the same purpose 

 as the vegetable fruit of the apple or orange. It 

 is seed, from which new individuals and colonies 

 are to be developed. As for the birds the writer 

 has seen small and very pretty rotifers on the 

 branches of this Zootliamnium looking so much 

 like birds on a forest-tree that he could not 

 help the comparison. Not that they are struc- 

 turally like any known species of birds ; but here 

 one is, so to speak, in fairy-land. Before us a 

 tree, contracting and expanding itself at pleasure ; 

 having flowers vibrating with active life the 

 corollas mounted with rotating discs, and visibly 

 feeding on surrounding matter, with intelligent 

 selection of the food required ; and, perched on its 

 branches, small and beautiful creatures that kept 

 their places with the alternate contractions and 

 expansions of the trunk and branches. Under 

 these circumstances, there was nothing surprising 

 in observing that those ^" birds " were crowned 



