4 THE BIOLOGY OF DAILY LIFE. 



pounds. This constitutes the main operation 

 of vegetable life, and in it we have the source 

 of the aliment of animals, which can only 

 Appropriate organic compounds, and which, 

 either directly or indirectly, derive these 

 compounds from the vegetable kingdom. 



" As the solar force, employed in the con- 

 struction of organic compounds through the 

 agency of the vegetable organisms, becomes 

 locked up in the compound formed, such 

 compound represents matter combined with 

 a definite amount of latent force. In the 

 employment, therefore, of organic matter as 

 aliment by animals we have to look upon it, 

 not only as yielding the material required for 

 the construction and maintenance of the 

 body, but as containing and supplying the 

 force which is evolved under various forms 

 by the operations of animal life." 

 The position of plants, as a needful link, between 

 the mineral and animal, in the matter of food supply, 

 is, as we see, well known. 



To complete the picture it is only necessary to re- 

 member the economy of Nature, in using over and 

 over again the same materials. Think of the vast 

 army of scavengers, belonging both to the animal and 

 vegetable worlds, which are employed to use up every 

 decomposing particle of vegetable or animal sub- 

 stance, and hasten its resolution into the inorganic 

 state, as water, carbonic acid, ammonia and such 

 like.* 



* See "Fungi" by Cooke & Berkeley. (Internal. Sclent. 

 Series, p. 222.) 



