83 
remote from light; of the stamina of many plants, 
of tendrils to grasp neighbouring stems, of climbing 
plants to twist, as the hop and honeysuckle, from 
right to left, and the convolvulus from left to right, 
appear to indicate some property analogous, at the 
least, to the nervous constitution of zoophytes and 
meduse. 
Osseous system. 
“The skeleton of mammalia reaches, on the one 
hand, the highest degree of symmetry, and, on the 
other, descends in some instances to that of the in- 
ferior classes. Thus the palmata approximate to 
fishes ; the bats to birds: whilst the armadillo, manis, 
and ornithoryncus constitute a complete transition 
into the amphibia $.” 
The existence of analogy, not the detail of ana- 
tomy, being the object of this Essay, a single in- 
stance will, for the sake of conciseness, be selected 
for illustration. Or, in other words, the analogy of 
one portion of the various structures of animals and 
plants will be noticed, referring generally, for the 
application of the argument to all other parts, to the 
writings of Cuvier, Meckel, and Carus, and the notes 
of Mr. Gore to his translation of the latter, and the 
authors there cited. 
The dorsal vertebre which support the ribs in 
man are 12, in the horse 18, in the elephant 20, in 
the bradypus unau 23. The cervical in man hte 
® Gore’s Carus, vol. i. p. 186. 
G 2 
