io LIFE AND HER CHILDREN. 
the simplest living forms it is often difficult to say 
whether they are plants or animals. 
But it is impossible for us to follow out the 
history of both these great branches or Kingdoms, 
as naturalists call them, so we must reluctantly turn 
our backs for the present upon the wonderful secrets 
of plant life, and give ourselves up in this work to 
the study of animals. 
First we meet with those simple forms which 
manage so cleverly to live without any separate 
parts with which to do their work. Marvellous 
little beings these, which live, and move, and 
multiply in a way quite incomprehensible as yet to 
us. Next we pass on to the slightly higher forms 
of the second division of life, in which the members 
have some simple weapons of attack and defence. 
Here we come first upon the wonderful living sponge, 
building its numerous canals, which are swept by 
special scavengers ; these form a sort of separate 
group, hovering between the first and second division, 
and from them we go on to the travelling jelly-fish, 
with their rudiments of eyes and ears, and their 
benumbing sting, and then to the sea-anemones with 
their lasso-cells, and to the wondrous coral-builders. 
Already we are beginning to find that the need of 
defence causes life to arm her children. 
The third division is a small, yet most curious one, 
containing the star-fish with their countless sucker-feet, 
the sea-urchins with their delicate sharp spines and 
curious teeth, and the sea -cucumbers with their 
power of throwing away the inside of their body 
and growing it afresh. This division goes off in 
one direction, while the next, or fourth, though start- 
