Vegetal Evolution. 147 



common to higher animal forms, and of immense 

 importance from the materialistic point of view, as 

 we shall see anon. 



(d) Motor Colonies of Plants. — Among the algae, 

 the plants volvoces, stephanospherce, and gonia form 

 gelatinous masses of diverse shapes, and so constitute 

 virtual motor colonies of protophyta. Beneath their 

 rounded surface numerous green cells, provided with 

 vibratile cilia, lash the surrounding water until the 

 whole colony voyages along. Anon the mass frac- 

 tures, the cells become free, each protophyte propels 

 itself as an independent animal, and eventually, after 

 undergoing various metamorphoses, they stiffen and 

 revert to the ancestral vegetal type. 



(e) A Vegetal an Imprisoned Animal. — In the hairs 

 of the tradescantia virginica, stinging hairs of nettles, 

 stellate hairs of althea rosea, etc., the protoplasm in 

 the cells confined by the cellulose wall does not pro- 

 ject its pseudopodia outside but inside ; while it also 

 crawls about like an amoeba and stretches its thin 

 filaments across the internal cavities of the plant. 

 Prevented from fishing without, it fishes within, and 

 is thus in all essentials a closely imprisoned proto- 

 zoon ; for if the protoplasm be liberated, as in ruptur- 

 ing the unicellular alga vaucheria, it throws out 

 pseudopodial projections and exhibits amoeboid 

 movements. 



This vegetal bondage anon develops into a similar 

 kind of animal bondage ; hence slavery finds ample 

 warrant throughout the whole vegetal and animal 



