AND THE LOWER ANIMALS. 261 



CHAPTER XXII. 



GENEAGENESIS IN PLANTS RELATION OF THE ANIMAL 



TO THE VEGETABLE KINGDOM. 



The various facts which have been summed up in 

 these essays lead to results of much importance to 

 general physiology. Certainly one of the most re- 

 markable has been the gradual establishment of a 

 relationship between the animal and vegetable king- 

 doms, and the removal of some of the greatest gaps 

 which existed, according to the ancients, between the 

 two great divisions of living beings. This conclusion 

 has been admitted by almost all naturalists devoted 

 to these curious researches, from PeysonnePs 

 time to that of Owen and Steenstrup. We our- 

 selves have on various occasions insisted on its ac- 

 curacy. In treating of Dujardin's works, we pointed 

 out the decided resemblance which certain pheno- 

 mena, observed in Medusas, by the zoologist of Rennes, 

 presented to those observed by Dutrochet in the 

 Fungi.* We showed how, as regards mode of repro- 

 duction, there was an unexpected relation established 

 between the worms of our streams and the trees 

 of our forests, between the syllis we found at Brehat 

 and the date-trees cultivated by the inhabitant of the 



* "Memoires pour servir a l'Histoire anatomique et physiolo 

 gique des Animaux et des Vegetaux." Paris, 1837. 



