In Plants and Animals. 8 1 



mouth and vent, and without any trace of visceral space 

 or visceral organ. Next to this is the arrangement met 

 with in the actinia an arrangement differing from the 

 one just named in this, that the stomachal sac is now 

 separated from the walls of the body by a number of 

 visceral spaces in which are the first traces of visceral 

 organs ovaries. Then follows the more complicated 

 visceral system of the starfish a system which copies 

 that of the actinia in the main, but which differs in this, 

 that the stomach is now provided with a vent as well as 

 with a mouth, and also with certain large csecal prolon- 

 gations which may be stomachal or glandular or any- 

 thing. After this, as in the holothuria or sea-slug, the 

 state of things met with in the starfish is complicated 

 by the appearance of an intestinal canal between the 

 stomach and the vent, and by various additions which 

 plainly show that the plan is a sketch of that which is 

 carried out in the higher animals. So far the case is 

 simple enough, and further it is not necessary to trace it. 

 For if there be any connection between animals and 

 plants in these particulars, it is likely to be found in the 

 very lowest forms of animal life rather than in the higher. 

 And in these very lowest forms where the visceral 

 system is reduced to a simple sac scooped out in the 

 body of the animal, with a single orifice which is at once 

 mouth and vent, and without either visceral cavity or 

 organ the connection with the plant is sufficiently 

 obvious. For in reality a point is here arrived at in 

 which the very notion of a visceral system is all but ex- 

 plained away. In plants, therefore, but very faint traces 

 of a visceral system are to be expected, and a feeling of 

 surprise is experienced when such marked traces are met 

 with as those which are present in the sac of the pitcher 

 plant, in the space between the armed leaves of the 



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