Dt8TWCTtOKS BETWEEN ANIMALS AND PLANTS. 3 



organisms is inorganic particles. The slime-moulds called 

 Myxomycetes, however, envelop the plant or low animals, 

 much as an Amoeha throws itself around some living plant 

 and absorbs its protoplasm ; but Mijxoimjcctes, in their man- 

 ner of taking food, are an exception to other moulds. The 

 lowest animals swallow other living animals whole or in 

 pieces ; certain forms like Amosba (Fig. 3) bore into minute 

 algffl and absorb their pro- 

 toplasm ; others engulf sili- 

 cious-shelled plants (diatoms 

 and desmids) and absorb the 

 protoplasm filling them. No 

 animal swallows silica, lime, 

 or ammonia, or phosphates 



as food. On the other hand, , Pig- a.-Amoeba a Protozoan. Theiight- 



' nana iignre showa three pjieiidopodiann the 



plants manufacture or pro- right side; in the two otlier figures the 



-*L . . ., ^ pseudopodia are withdrawn in tne body- 



duce protein m starch, albu- mass. 



men, sugar, etc., which is animal food. Plants inhale car- 

 bonic acid gas and exhale oxygen; animals inhale oxygen 

 and exhale carbonic acid ; though Draper has discovered 

 that, under certain circumstances, plants may exhale car- 

 bonic acid. 



Animals move and have special organs of locomotion ; 

 few plants move, though some climb, and minute forms 

 have thread-like processes or vibratile lashes (cilia) resem- 

 bling the flagella of monads, and flowers open and shut, but 

 these motions of the higher plants are purely mechanical, 

 and not performed by special organs controlled by nerves. 

 The mode of reproduction of plants and animals, however, 

 is fundamentally identical, and in this respect the two king- 

 doms unite more closely than in any other. Plants also, 

 like animals, are formed of cells, the latter in the higher 

 forms combined into tissues. 



As the lowest plants and animals are scarcely distinguish- 

 able, it is probable that plants and animals first appeared 

 contemporaneously ; and while plants are generally said 

 to form the basis of animal life, this is only partially true ; 

 a large number of fungi are dependent on decaying animal 

 matter; and most of the Protozoa live on animal food, as 



