656 What is an Organism ? [November, 
their adult; existence often very early in the season, the invi- 
sible heaBrays can have here but a very doubtful influence. 
Besides we find kindred forms, of precisely similar habits, 
such as Typhceus vulgaris , black both above and below, with- 
out the least tinge of iridescence'. 
A still more unfavourable case seems to be that of the 
small Staphylinidae, very dull and sombre in colour, yet 
always on the wing about the latter end of summer and the 
beginning of autumn, and well known in rural districts to 
the non-eniomological public from their unpleasant habit of 
rushing into the eyes of passers-by, getting entangled under 
the eye-lids, and occasioning exquisite pain. These creatures 
encounter the rays of light to as great an extent, and in as 
many varied directions, as the Buprestidae, yet there is no 
generation of gorgeous colours. 
In thus criticising Mr. Lewis’s views we speak with very 
considerable reservation, since his memoir had more the 
character of a preliminary tentative sketch than of a fully 
elaborated theory. But we must also remember the very 
serious objections which have been brought forward by Mr. A. 
R. Wallace, to the supposed influence of light as a main 
factor in organic colouration. 
V. WHAT IS AN ORGANISM? 
By R. M. N. 
£ ROM day to day it becomes less easy to recognise and 
to justify distinctions which to our forefathers seem 
natural, broad, and striking. They felt no difficulty 
in drawing a hard and fast boundary between man and beast, 
between bird and reptile. To them animals and plants were 
creatures widely distinct, and incapable of being confounded 
together. But to them the animal was a lion, a horse, a 
camel, or, in the hardest case, a frog, a bee, or an earth- 
worm, and such beings were not readily mistaken for a palm, 
an oak, a vine, or a grass- plant. But the more we have in 
successive ages learnt about animals and plants, little as it 
is, the more difficult do we find it to mark off one of these 
great “kingdoms ’’ from the other. Even among scientific 
