62 The Round of Life. 
in the fact that all vegetables, except some families of parasitic 
plants, and, perhaps, some species described as carnivorous plants, 
feed alone on inorganic matter, while animals derive their suste- 
nance from organised matter. 
From this fact the inference seems inevitable that vegetable 
life must have preceded animal life, for without vegetable food all 
animal organisms would quickly and utterly perish. While animals 
and plants differ so widely in their mode of life—that is, in the 
food they consume—as well as in their organisation and locomotive 
powers, they yet approach each other very closely in. several 
essential points, and in their genesis are really identical. Actual 
life, or vitality, is the same in both animals and vegetables; the 
only difference being the structure of the house it dwells in. All 
plants possess, in some measure, the power of self-movement. 
Even the most quiescent move as absolutely as the sensitive plant, 
Venus fly-trap, or the stamens of the barberry ; though their 
motion is not so rapid, and consequently not so apparent to 
ordinary observation. Whole families of microscopic aquatic 
plants move from place to place freely, with a spontaneous motion 
equalling that of some of the lower orders of animals. 
Plants, like animals, have their hours of sleep and rest. In 
the higher order of plants the young are developed in ovaries 
contained in the seed. Provision is also made in the parent plant 
for the support of its offspring, and in sufficient quantities to last 
until the young plant becomes vigorous enough to draw its own 
sustenance from the elements. It is indeed from this provision of 
vegetables for their offspring that animals derive a large portion 
of their nourishment ; without it many could not exist. This 
stored food is to be found in all kinds of seeds as well as in the 
roots and tubers of plants and their succulent stems. 
But it is in actual life, or vital force, that all distinction 
between animals and plants are lost. In this respect the young 
lady and the rose that adorns her bosom are the same, and the 
like is true of the ox and the plant it feeds upon. In the simplest 
water plants of the sea-weed family the structure of the seed is at 
first a very minute rounded mass. When one of these globules es- 
capes from the mother plant it often swims about freely in the water 
in various directions with a truly spontaneous motion ; and at this 
time it so closely resembles an animal organism that it is fre- 
quently mistaken for one. After enjoying this active life for 
several hours, it comes to rest, forms a covering of cellulose, and 
thereafter becomes a true vegetable cell, fixes itself to some sup- 
port, germinates, and grows into the perfect plant. Each living 
plant-cell carries on a circulation of its own. This may be seen 
in the transparent stems of Chara and many other water plants, 
and in the leaves of the fresh-water Tape-grass. Here the fluid 
