HALF HOURS WITH INSECTS 
1, Iwsects of IliB Uarilrm, 
A NIMAL and plant life are mutually dependent. Each 
has a starting point from a simple cell—“the struc-, 
tural unit of the entire organized world.” The zoologist and 
the botanist, ordinarily travelling in separate realms, seem to 
meet on common ground while studying the lowest represen¬ 
tatives of their respective groups. Indeed some one has com¬ 
pared the animal and vegetable kingdoms to two mountain 
peaks of unequal height, whose adjoining bases rise from an 
elevated table land. The naturalist discerns below a won¬ 
derful simplicity and agreement in the scenes around him ; for 
life is there manifested in the simplest geometrical forms, and 
there is no distinction between animals and plants. But as he 
mounts farther up one or the other of the ascents, his interest 
is continually excited by the numberless modifications of the 
simple forms beneath him, and while he finds the loftier ele¬ 
vation teeming with the myriad forms of animal life, yet 
there constantly occur to him hints and analogies connecting 
the most complex and highly endowed organizations with the 
humblest forms he left below. 
The question whether animals may not be spontaneously 
produced still remains an open one; while the discovery of 
the aquarium which reveals to us the delicate balance exist¬ 
ing between animal and vegetable life, and also the alleged 
necessity of the direct agency of insects in the fertilization 
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