Natural Science News. 



VOL. I ALBION, N. Y., NOVEMBEK 23, 1895. No. 43 



Natural Science News. 



A Weekly Journal Devoted to 

 Natural History. 



FRANK H. LATTIN, Editor and Publisher, 

 ALBION, N. Y. 



Correspondence and Items ot interest to the 

 student of any of the various branches of the 

 Natural Sciences solicited from all. 



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 What is an Animal? 



CONTINUED. 



It might also be shown that 

 some substances long regarded as 

 belonging exclusively to plants 

 are now known to be manufactur- 

 ed as natural products by animals. 

 The chlorophyll, or green colouring- 

 matter of plants, occurs in many 

 animalcules — this fact rendering 

 the identity of many of the lower 

 forms of life more and more con- 

 fusing- — as well as in animals of 

 higher grade. And a starchy sub- 

 stance known as cellulose, of which 

 the walls of plant-cells are com- 

 posed, is found abundantly in the 

 outer layer or covering of the 

 bodies of those Molluscoid animals 

 named "Sea-squirts" or Ascidians. 

 Sugar and starch, known to every 

 one as vegetable products of char- 

 acteristic kind, are now ascertain- 

 ed to be manufactured in a per- 

 rectly regular fashion by animals, 

 which, as it would seem, are bent 

 on the close imitation of the char- 

 acter of plants. And stranger still, 

 it would appear that the chemical 

 and vital processes of animals 

 are imitated by planes; for it has 

 been known that in the developing 

 seed of a vetch there exists a prin- 

 ciple, or "ferment," as it is called, 

 allied to the "sweet-bread" juice 

 or pancreatic secretion of animals. 

 By means of this secretion, the 

 young plant as it springs from the 

 seed is able actually to "digest" 

 the starchy and nitrogenous mat- 

 ter within its reach. The digestion 

 of flies by the "Venus' fly-trap" 



{Dionaa) and by the Sundew(Z?/v- 

 serd), as described in another pa- 

 per, also illustrate the imitation of 

 the animal processes by plants. 



And just as the chemist in- 

 creases our difficulties by showing 

 us the similarity in substance of 

 animal and plant bodies, so also 

 does the microscope fail us when 

 we apply to him for aid in separat- 

 ing the two groups of living or- 

 ganisms. If animals and plants 

 are to be regarded as alike in com- 

 position, they are no less similar 

 in essential structure. Place the 

 tissues of animals under the mi- 

 croscope, and they are seen to be 

 composed of the minute bodies to 

 which the name of "cells" is given. 

 Examine plant-tissues, and "cells" 

 again appear as the units of which 

 the plant as a whole is built up. 

 And once again, if the lower ani- 

 mals and plants be microscopically 

 compared, their substance, which 

 defies separation by the art of 

 chemistry, equally defies divorce 

 at the hands of the microscopist. 

 The protoplasm of lower animal 

 and plant bodies is literally indis- 

 tinguishable. If the germ of the 

 higher plant, and that from which 

 the higher animal springs, be ex- 

 amined by the microscope, the 

 differences which become so ap- 

 parent in after life are seen to dis- 

 appear in a primary resemblance, 

 so close in all points, that the task 

 of separation appears simply hope- 

 less. 



It may now be said that, grant- 

 ing that the futility of the forego- 

 ing methods of scientific examina- 

 tion in enabling us to say wherein 

 lie the essential features of the an- 

 imal and the plant, the presence 

 of nerves, and the power of re- 

 ceiving and of acting upon sensa- 

 tions, might be regarded as a char- 

 acteristic of the animal as distin- 

 guished from the non-sensitive 

 plant. But in a previons paper it has 

 been shown that the Venus' fly- 

 trap, the sensitive plant, and other 

 plants are highly sensitive; and we 

 then advanced reasons in our opin- 

 ion of greater force than any that 

 may be given to the contrary, in 

 support of the proposition that 

 sensation was universally diffused 

 through living nature. Wherever 

 the primitive life-substance of pro- 

 toplasm exists, it may be held that 

 there sensation is present — lowly 

 developed it may be, but still un- 

 doubtedly manifested, as we may 

 see when we regard the movements 



in the cells of lower plants or the 

 better defined acts of animalcules. 

 The arguments for the universal 

 recognition of sensation as an in- 

 variable concomitant of life itself 

 are both reasonable and well- 

 founded on theology. 



The assertion that animals may 

 be invariably known by the pos- 

 session of a mouth and stomach is 

 disproved by the consideration 

 that many parasite animals — for 

 example, the tape-worms, the male 

 "wheel-animalcule" or Rotifera, 

 and many animalcules — are desti- 

 tute of, it may be, the veriest rudi- 

 ments of a digestive apparatus. 

 The animal commissariat in such 

 cases is conducted essentially on 

 the principles of the plant; such 

 animals in most cases living by 

 the absorption of fluid matters in 

 the absence of an alimentary sys- 

 tem. ' It may be admitted that it 

 is a characteristic of most animals 

 that they can feed on solid mat- 

 ters, and as a rule on living matter 

 only; whilst their plant-neighbors, 

 are compelled to subsist on 

 "slops" — that is liquid and gase- 

 ous food, or inorganic matter de- 

 rived from the soil and atmos- 

 phere; the liquids, however con- 

 taining solid matters in solution. 

 But there are some lower plants 

 allied to the Fungi, which present 

 us with exceptions to these latter 

 rules. Man}' parasitic plants feed 

 on the juices of other plants — that 

 is, on living matter. And what 

 shall we say of ALthalium, the so- 

 called "flowers of tan," a fungus 

 growing in tan-pits, which not 

 merely begins to exhibit independ- 

 dent movements at certain periods 

 of its existence, but at these 

 periods appears to subsist on solid 

 food, like a veritable animal? 

 Thus even a single example — and 

 ALthalium is not alone in respect 

 of its singular habits — may vitiate 

 a distinction, which, as applied to 

 the generality of plants, is of suf- 

 ficiently stable kind. Connected 

 with the subject and question of 

 the food of the two groups of liv- 

 ing beings, is that of the gases 

 necessary for the maintenance of 

 animal and plant life respectively. 

 Every one acquainted with the 

 merest rudiments of human phys- 

 iology know that animals require 

 a due supply of oxygen for the 

 maintenance of their vital funct- 

 ions and that plants, on the other 

 hand, demand carbonic acid as their 

 gaseous food. Could this rule be 



