E Nature Of The Food. Whilst all the preceding points have failed to yield a means of invariably separating animals from plants, a distinction which holds good almost without exception is to be found in the nature of the food taken respectively by each, and in the results of the conversion of the same. The unsatisfactory feature, however, in this distinction is this, that even if it could be shown to be, theoretically, invariably true, it would nevertheless be practically impossible to apply it to the greater number of those minute organisms concerning which alone there can be any dispute.

As a broad rule, all plants are endowed with the power of converting inorganic into organic matter. The food of plants consists of the inorganic compounds, carbonic acid, ammonia, and water, along with small quantities of certain mineral salts. From these, and from these only, plants are capable of elaborating the proteinaceous matter or protoplasm which consti-stutes the physical basis of life. Plants, therefore, take as food very simple bodies, and manufacture them into much more complex substances. In other words, by a process of deoxida-tion or unburning, rendered possible by the influence of sunlight only, plants convert the inorganic or stable elements - ammonia, carbonic acid, water, and certain mineral salts - into the organic or unstable elements of food. The whole problem of nutrition may be narrowed to the question as to the modes and laws by which these stable elements are raised by the vital chemistry of the plant to the height of unstable compounds.

To this general statement, however, an exception must be made in favour of certain Fungi, which require ready-made organic matter for their nourishment. There are also certain plants (such as the Sun-dew and the Venus' Fly-trap) which live to some extent upon animal food.

On the other hand, no known animal possesses the power of converting inorganic compounds into organic matter, but all, mediately or immediately, are dependent in this respect upon plants. All animals, as far as is certainly known, require ready-made proteinaceous matter for the maintenance of existence, and this they can only obtain in the first instance from plants. Animals, in fact, differ from plants in requiring as food complex organic bodies which they ultimately reduce to very much simpler inorganic bodies. The nutrition of animals is a process of oxidation or burning, and consists essentially in the conversion of the energy of the food into vital work; this conversion being effected by the passage of the food into living tissue. Plants, therefore, are the great manufacturers in nature, - animals are the great consumers.

There remain to be noticed two distinctions, broadly though not universally applicable, which are due to the nature of the food required respectively by animals and plants. In the first place, the food of all plants consists partly of gaseous matter, and partly of matter held in solution. They require, therefore, no special aperture for its admission, and no internal cavity for its reception. The food of almost all animals consists of solid particles, and they are therefore usually provided with a mouth and a distinct digestive cavity. Some animals, however, such as the tapeworms and the Gregarinae, live entirely by the imbibition of organic fluids through the general surface of the body, and many have neither a distinct mouth nor stomach.

Secondly, plants decompose carbonic acid, retaining the carbon and setting free the oxygen, certain fungi forming an exception to this law. The reaction of plants upon the atmosphere is therefore characterised by the production of free oxygen. Animals, on the other hand, absorb oxygen and emit carbonic acid, so that their reaction upon the atmosphere is the reverse of that of plants, and is characterised by the production of carbonic acid.

Finally, it is worthy of notice that it is in their lower and not in their higher developments that the two kingdoms of organic nature approach one another. No difficulty is experienced in separating the higher animals from the higher plants, and, for these, universal laws can be laid down to which there is no exception. It might, not unnaturally, have been thought that the lowest classes of animals would exhibit most affinity to the highest plants, and that thus a gradual passage between the two kingdoms would be established. This is not the case, however. The lower animals are not allied to the higher plants, but to the lower ; and it is in the very lowest members of the vegetable kingdom, or in the embryonic and immature forms of plants little higher in the scale, that we find such a decided animal gift as the power of independent locomotion. It is also in the less highly organised and less specialised forms of plants that we find the chief departures from the great laws of vegetable life, the deviation being in the direction of the laws of animal life.