26 
LIFE, IN ITS LOWER FORMS. 
“ Without doubt,” you still reply. The worm, the cater- 
pillar, the suail, the oyster 3 “Yes,” you say still, perhaps 
hesitating a little upon the last, as its energy and vivacity 
are confessedly not great. Still, probably, you have been 
accustomed to consider an oyster as an animal, though one 
in which the animal life is in about its lowest condition ; 
and you think you have got through your catechism with- 
out any great difficulty. Stay : we must ask you to 
descend with us a step or two lower than the oyster. You 
have, perhaps, seen on the sandy shore in summer the 
fiat cakes of motionless, colourless jelly, commonly called 
sea-blubber : are these animals 1 If you have seen them, 
in the sea, possibly you will consider the spasmodic 
contraction of the circular disk at regular periods as an 
indication of life, though you begin to see that in such a 
mass of clear jelly as this, without limbs, without organs, 
without senses, without intelligence, without a power of 
governing its movements, wc have departed somewhat 
considerably from such a standard of animal naturo as the 
horse or the tiger presented. 
But let us look further yet. The brilliant-hued Sea 
Anemone that adheres to the rock, and expands its lovely 
fringed disk liko the blossom of a flower, — what is this 1 
People call it an animal-flower ; but what is it, animal or 
flower 3 Probably you arc at last puzzled ; you are 
inclined to think it a sort of marine flower, though its 
fleshy substance, and its shrinking when touched, produce 
some misgivings in your decision. Well, try again. In 
the baskets of dried sea-weed which are exposed for sale in 
watering-places, you have often seen the papery leaves of 
pale-brown hue, or feathery plumes of pure white, mingled 
