TRANSACTIONS OF THE SECTIONS. Ill 



by grain, and found among it two grains of a different variety from the rest ; these 

 were perfectly fresh, whereas the others were dark-coloured, with decided indica- 

 tions of decomposition and partial charring. Upon inquiry he was able to ascer- 

 tain that this sample was a portion of a large stock, which had been taken from a 

 catacomb some years previously, and had been exposed for sale in the jars of a 

 corn merchant at Cairo. There could be no doubt an accidental admixture of a 

 few recent grains left in the jars had taken place. In samples supplied by Sir G. 

 Wilkinson to the late Robert Brown for the purpose of experiment, the latter 

 had found in it a few grains of Indian corn ! He thought it not at all improbable 

 that the samples he had examined, and those furnished by Sir G. Wilkinson, might 

 have formed portions of the same stock. 



On the Distinctio?is of a Plant and an Animal, and on a Fourth Kingdom 

 of Nature*. By John Hogg, M.A., F.R.S., F.L.S., Sfc. 



The author stated the great difficulty he had long experienced when examining 

 some of the simpler living beings, in defining the characters of those primary 

 forms of life, whether they belong to the vegetable or animal kingdom ; and he 

 considered that there may strictly be no distinction in nature between those king- 

 doms ; and that life in the lowest animal, as well as in the simplest plant, may be 

 the same ; still that it is necessary to draw a line of demarcation between them, for 

 the purpose of classifying the numerous creatures or organisms existing in the world. 

 Mr. J. Hogg then showed that he had, more than twenty years ago, demonstrated 

 that locomotion, although apparently spontaneous, was no distinction of animality. 

 Neither could the presence of iodine nor of starch be accounted a satisfactory test 

 of vegetability. So the four chemical elements, hydrogen, carbon, nitrogen, and 

 oxygen, have been regarded for the same objects, though without positive success ; 

 and even the green colouring matter, called " chromule," or " chlorophyll " (once 

 supposed to belong exclusively to vegetables), has been shown to be likewise pre- 

 sent in certain of the lower animals. But the author observed that the " two prin- 

 cipal characteristics of an animal are undoubtedly the muscular and nervous systems, 

 which do not exist in a plant, and which Prof. Owen has not included in his de- 

 finitions of a plant and an animal given in his new work on ' Palaeontology.' " 

 Mr. J. Hogg then referred to Lianeeus's arrangement of all natural bodies into 

 three kingdoms, and, after quoting his definitions of Lapides, Vegetabilia, and 

 Animalia, said that they must at this day be accounted as insufficient and too 

 concise; and, considering the great extension of science, both in Zoology and 

 Botany, which had taken place since the time of Linnaeus, he attempted to enlarge 

 the definitions of those three divisions of natural bodies thus : — Minerals are bodies, 

 hard, aggregative, simple, or component, having bulk, weight, and often regular 

 form ; but inorganic, inanimate, indestructible by death, insentient, and illocomo- 

 tive. Vegetables are beings, organic, living, nourishable, stomachless, generative, 

 destructible by death, possessing some sensibility, sometimes motive, and some- 

 times locomotive in their young or seed state ; but inanimate, insentient, immus- 

 cular, nerveless, and mostly fixed by their roots. Animals are beings, organic, 

 living, nourishable, having a stomach, generative, destructible by death, motive, 

 animate, sentient, muscular, nervous, and mostly spontaneously locomotive, but 

 sometimes fixed by their bases. 



Further, as regards a fourth kingdom of Nature, the author having perused 

 Prof. Owen's ' Palaeontology,' published this year, found that he had introduced 

 the "Kingdom Protozoa," and placed it before the "Kingdom Animalia." He 

 proved that there were objections to the term "Protozoa," which was formed by a 

 toreign naturalist, and that it could not include those lower organisms, whose 

 nature partook more of plants (Phyta) than of animals (Zoo,) without creating 

 errors ; and since it appears to many desirable to place those organic beings which 

 are of a doubtful nature in a fourth or an additional kingdom, he suggested one 

 under the title of the Primigenal Kingdom, — Regnum Primigenum continens 

 Protoctista, i. e. Protophyta et Protozoa. This would comprise all the lower 

 creatures, or the primary organic beings — "Protoctista," from npcoros, frst, and 



* This entire paper, with the coloured Diagram, is published in the ' Edinburgh New 

 Philosophical Journal,' vol. xii. (new series) for October 1860, pp. 216-225, 



