8o Life and Love. 



its tiny atom of protoplasm to the contents of the 

 ovule, just as tlie protoplasmic material of the 

 sperm-cell joined, and was fused with, the egg-cell. 



Life is all one. There is no great difference be- 

 tween an animal and a plant, — merely a difference 

 of degree, rather than of kind. Springing from 

 the same source, one form of life moves rhythmi- 

 cally on for but a short distance, then reaches the 

 end of its ancestral path, — another moves yet far- 

 ther along a more difficult way; yet are they 

 brothers all, and inextricably joined the one to the 

 other along the whole line of life. 



Animal could not live without plant, plant 

 could not live without animal. The carbonic acid 

 gas exhaled by all animal life forms necessary food 

 for the plant, and this carbonic acid gas, were it not 

 appropriated and cleared from the air, would suffo- 

 cate the animal in the product of its own activity. 

 At the same time the animal depends upon the 

 plant to liberate o.xygen for his consumption. 



But nowhere are plant life and animal life more 

 curiously and intimately connected than among 

 insects and flowers. 



The same laws that govern animal reproduction 

 govern plant life. 



When the period of fertility approaches we find 

 the plant tissues undergoing a change ; certain of 

 them burst forth in rare bloom, and this gorgeous 

 coloring, we are told, is developed to such intensity 

 because of the lo\'c of insects for bright colors. 



