BOOK V. 



OF THE ZOOPHYTES. 



CHAP. I. 



OF ZOOPHYTES IN GENERAL. 



We now come to the last link in the chain of animated na- 

 ture, to a class of beings so confined in their powers, and so de- 

 fective in their formation, that some historians have been at a 

 loss whether to consider them as a superior rank of vegetables, 

 or the humblest order of the animated tribe. In order, there- 

 fore, to give them a denomination agreeable to their existence, 

 they have been called Zoophytes, a name implying vegetable 

 nature endued with animal life ; and, indeed, in some the marks 

 of the animal are so few, that it is difficult to give their place 

 in nature with precision, or to tell whether it is a plant or an 

 insect that is the object of our consideration. 



Should it be asked what it is that constitutes the difference 

 between animal and vegetable life ; what it is that lays the line 

 that separates those two great kingdoms from each other, it 

 would be difficult, perhaps we should find it impossible, to re- 

 turn an answer. The power of motion cannot form this dis- 

 tinction, since some vegetables are possessed of motion, and 

 many animals are totally without it. The sensitive plant has 

 obviously a greater variety of motions than the oyster or the 

 pholas. The animal that fills the acorn-shell is immoveable, 

 and can only close its lid to defend itself from external injury, 

 while the flower, which goes by the name of the fly-trap, seems 

 to close upon the flies that light upon it, and that attempt to 



