26 THE MICROSCOPE. 



has been between adjacent nations. For many 

 parts of this border country have been taken and 

 retaken several times ; their inhabitants having 

 first been considered on account of their general 

 appearance to belong to the vegetable kingdom ; 

 then, in consequence of some movements being 

 observed, in their being claimed by the zoolo- 

 gists ; then, owing to the supposed detection of 

 some new feature in their structure or phy- 

 siology, being again claimed as members of the 

 animal kingdom ; and, lastly, on the discovery of 

 a fallacy in these arguments, being once more 

 laid hold of by the Botanist, with whom, for 

 the most part, they now remain." 1 



Professor Carpenter further remarks, that the 

 most generally applicable test to distinguish 

 between any organism of the animal and vege- 

 table kingdom, " is not, as was formerly sup- 

 posed, the presence or absence of spontaneous 

 motion, but the dependency of the being for 

 nutriment upon organic compounds already 

 formed, which it takes, in some way or other, 

 into the interior of its body ; or its possession 

 of the power of obtaining its own alimentary 



1 Carpenter on the Microscope, pp. 262, 263. 



