40 



THE FAMILY AQUARIUM. 



water, the same link between vegetable and animal life, 

 which is conceded in sea-water to the lower order of 

 polyps : that is, they are supposed to be neither perfect 

 plants nor perfect animals, but a combination of both — a 

 sort of first starting-point at which the higher species of 

 existence commences to depart, in development, from the 

 inferior. The Spirillum are similarly remarkable, though 

 Dr. Lankester attributes the motion of both these classes 

 of plants, as in the Protojphyta and Protozoa, to the pro- 

 teinaceous protaplasm within the cell," which is, in sub- 

 stance, a concession to them of the essential elements of a 

 nervous and muscular system. 



Plants sleep, too, after having been in continued and 

 violent activity. Some of th^m which inhabit those high 

 latitudes where the sun is withdrawn from sight for 

 months at a time, regularly fold themselves ujd in slumber 

 every twenty-four hours, and with as much exactness as 

 if possessed of a time-piece, or as if enacting the part of 

 one for the benefit of the less gifted by nature. 



The disposition of plants to turn to the light is too 

 well known to demand more than a passing allusion. The 

 stalks, branches, leaves, and blossoms, all move in the 

 same direction in this effort, and the fact has suggested to 

 many a poet a pretty image of affection. The sun-flower 

 follows with its yellow eyes, the course of the day-god's 

 illuminous ray " with a fondness that is particularly strik- 

 ing, though commonplace. Robbed of all romance, how- 

 ever, this yearning for the light is owing, probably, to the 



