Is i

S it an animal or a vegetable? This question has, with regard to many of the lower forms of organic existence, been frequently agitated, and is not indeed even now settled to the satisfaction of all; there may be some, however, whose minds have never been exercised upon so important a topic, and who, were the question put to them, would refer to the sheep nipping grass in the field, and triumphantly ask if there could be any doubt about that! Certainly it would need a skilled disputant to carry such a discussion much farther; and we might be met by the old teaching of our schoolbooks that the great distinction between an animal and a vegetable consisted in the circumstances that the former moves about in search of its food while the latter is stationary, and grows as it imbibes nutriment from the soil and air; but the microscope reveals to us what otherwise would be an invisible world of vegetable beings having organs of motion by which they travel with considerable rapidity, and of whom it may be said that for a large portion of their existence motion is their normal condition; clearly then, locomotion is not the only test of animal life, and indeed the difficulty of deciding upon the class to which organisms on the border-land belong is so great, that some species which have been claimed as animals by one set of observers, have as vehemently been decided to be vegetable by others, and at one period classed with the one form and then handed over to the other great branch of nature; however, it is now tolerably well agreed that several of the minute forms of life formerly grouped amongst the infusorial animalcules, to which attention was recently

invited, are not animal existences, but

vegetables, oftentimes consisting of merely a simple cell, but others being exceedingly beautiful and of a more complex character. Many of these are so extremely small, that all that we wrote last month respecting the minuteness of the animal will equally apply to the wonderfully large amount of vegetable beings which might exist in a little

space.

The rapidity with which every bare surface is covered with vegetation is an illustration of the oft-recurring lesson that the earth with all its moral deformity is a grand scene of physical beauty, the details of which will bear the investigation of the most scrutinizing eye; every moist spot of undisturbed earth is speedily covered with a green coating; the hard rock, where it affords a lodgment for rain drops, becomes the resting space of invisible germs floating in the atmosphere, and ere long its surface is dotted over with humble forms of vegetable life which, by the successive decay and growth of myriads of organisms, at length prepares a soil for the reception of more highly organized existences by which the jutting crag or riven cliff is clothed with drapery of the most exquisite forms. "Seeds to our eyes invisible, will find

On the rude rock the bed that fits their kind;
There in the rugged soil they safely dwell,
Till showers and snows the subtle atoms swell,
And spread the enduring foliage, then we trace
The freckled flower upon the flinty base,
These all increase, 'till in unnoted years
The stormy tower as gray with age appears,
With coats of vegetation thinly spread,
Coat above coat, the living on the dead."*

Moisture being essential to the development of the germs, it is not surprising that in water the process should who have kept an aquarium will have go on with great quickness; indeed all been impressed with this circumstance, that the sides of the glass are so covered as the complaint is frequently heard with a "nasty green film," that nothing within can be seen with distinctness;

result of the natural endeavour to clothe

yet this so-called nasty film is but the all things with verdure. But if it be not difficulty, or by proper treatment it will admired it may be removed without disappear. The surface of the glass since so entirely coated, and the light so containing our "pond" was sometime much obscured by it as to appear nearly black, but a few mowers and scavengers in the shape of small pond-snails, soon

*It may be necessary to remind young readers that in this, otherwise correct, description by Crabbe, the terms foliage and flowers are poetical expressions; the lower order of plants having neither the one nor the other.

cut it down with their wonderful rasps, and now the water is as clear as possible. | No one need take the trouble to provide small vegetation for his aquarium, as Nature will adorn every piece of stone within it in such a beautiful manner, that it will be folly indeed to attempt to imitate it, and will amply suffice to maintain the water in a state fit to be the habitation of animals.

The curious phenomenon known as gory dew, in which spots of a blood-red colour appear in various places, to the great fright of uninstructed humanity; is due to the growth of minute vegetation, and is, no doubt, a variety of form which in colder climates covers the surface of snow, producing the well-known red snow of the Polar regions. The red snow plant is a globular cell so small, that from ten to twelve hundred of them might be placed side by side in a space of an inch long; myriads of which are usually aggregated together, but each cell being recognisable under the microscope. It is remarkable that this plant may be kept many years in a moist state in a stoppered bottle, without the structure undergoing scarcely any change. We had the opportunity, by the kindness of the late lamented Professor Quekett, of examining some of this vegetation brought home by one of the Arctic Voyagers, and found that it had retained its form and brilliancy of colouring, the little cells under a strong light resembling rounded rubies.

In early summer, when water remains undisturbed and is exposed to the action of the sun, it is often found to attain a striking green hue, very evident on holding a portion of it in a clear vessel to the light; the water seems to have been dyed with some colouring matter, and it a piece of rag be dipped into it, it will also be coloured in a similar manner; but if a small portion of the water be taken on the end of a pin and dropped on a glass under the microscope, it will be found to be perfectly colourless, but full of very minute green bodies which move about with the greatest freedom, jostling each other, swimming now up, then down, to and fro, and keeping up a perpetual whirl of activity which is highly suggestive of animal enjoyment, but is due simply to the active state of these undoubted

vegetable organisms which are furnished with a long cilium that appears to be the organ of locomotion.

On taking water in spring for observation, from a clear ditch or stagnant pool, there will generally be found curious disc-like bodies, composed of several green cells, each with its minute cilia, but all united; with these frequently occur others of a square shape, and some aggregated like a bunch of grapes, which, when magnified, roll over and over under the eye, these are the active and compound zoospores, each of which will in due time become detached from its fellows, sink into a state of repose, then known as "resting spores,' and ultimately germinate into other forms of vegetation.

While speaking of minute vegetation, we cannot refrain from noticing one, which, though not invisible, is still small, varying from about one-thirtieth to onehundredth of an inch in diameter. When viewed by the unaided eye in a vessel of clear water, it appears as a tiny green speck, moving slowly but steadily through it; but take it out, and place it in a glass cell under the instrument, and you find it to be a pellucid globe of the most delicate tint of green, its surface divided by a number of lines, the probable junction of the numerous segments of which the sphere is composed, while projecting therefrom are a large number of cilia in constant motion. The globe moves round and round so persistently, on, as it would appear, an axis, that it has been named the revolving globe-Volvox Globator. This lovely organism has given rise to much learned controversy as to the nature of its being, but it is now, we believe, almost, if not quite, universally admitted to be vegetable. Within the globe are seen other globes, each formed as the outer or parent one, and within these still, others in a more or less perfect state of development; when any of them are fully formed, they may be observed in active motion until at length the parent membrane bursts and they swim forth, in turn to suffer the same disruption as their progeny ripens into an adult state.

Reverting to the more minute organisms, we have those singular forms which are always the first to make their appearance where there is matter in a

state of decay, these are long and slender: but how comparative these terms are, may be imagined when it is added that if nine thousand of them were laid end to end, they would not extend beyond an inch in distance; these germs must be enormously abundant, and probably floating everywhere, waiting only for the occurrence of circumstances suited to their development, and it is not improbable, as has been supposed by some observers, that their presence may be connected with some of the forms of epidemic disease to which man is subject. They are seldom, if ever, at rest, but have a peculiar vacillating or vibratory movement. Not only is the air laden with these, but also with the spores of that large and beautiful class of vegetation which covers our cheese, bread, fruit, &c., when in a state of decay, or unduly exposed to damp; and the mind cannot fail to be struck with the immense profusion of vitality everywhere around us, a large amount of which must fail for want of those conditions under which alone it can flourish; but on the other hand, millions upon millions of these germs of life are actively engaged in disintegrating, tearing up as it were, matters of various kinds, which would be useless if not deleterious if allowed to remain; and withal, while doing this, preparing objects of beauty on every hand for the gratification of any who will turn aside for a moment from the busy whirl of life's cares to refresh the soul by communing with the calm, quiet, but active and benevolent spirit, displayed in Nature.

If my readers would make the acquaintance of some of the more exquisitely beautiful, and at the same time, many grotesque forms of the invisible vegetation, he should take his staff and seek health by walking over some breezy heath or open country, where in little bosky dells, or sunny nooks, pools of water lie reflecting back to heaven the beauteous likenesses of cloud, or moon, or star, or sun; upon whose banks the tangled brake and wild flowers entwine, and the lovely little round leaves of the sundew are to be found nestling in the mossy margin; the water is clear as crystal, but brown in tint from the boggy nature of the soil, and is never disturbed save when some feathered song

| ster dips its beak into the cooling surface, or a bee returning laden to its hive rests its limbs upon the ledge, and refreshes itself by sipping of the pool; let him sit down here awhile and think, as his eyes are gladdened by the sight of happy nature around him, what this world might, nay, would have been, had not the race of which he is a member, introduced disobedience and sin. Peering down into the quiet depths of the pool he will observe the stones at the bottom covered with a slimy vegetation, and being duly provided with some widemouthed bottles, he should carefully gather some of the greenery from different parts of the pool into separate vessels. On returning home to observe his gathering by the aid of the Microscope, he will gratify his curiosity by making the acquaintance of that beautiful tribe of plants known as the Desmidiæ, or popularly "slimy worts;" these are only to be found in fresh water, and are single celled, flattened, and of a bright green colour, the coloring matter distributed through the interior so as to produce a variety of patterns; in Autumn, the green colour passes into brown, in a manner analagous to vegetation on a larger scale. The shapes of these plants, each of which consists of but one cell, known as a frustule, or sometimes froud, are of the most bizarre character, quite overturning all preconceived notions respecting curved lines being lines of beauty; here you have squares, parallelograms, cubes, as well as circles, ovals, and other geometric forms. They progress slowly, and with an oscillating motion, the source of which is not understood, although there are many theories to account for it; they will certainly move toward light, and if placed in a glass vessel, will aggregate upon the sides of it nearest to the sun, and if mixed with mud will work their way through it. Under the microscope, we have frequently watched their motions, but without being able to detect any cilia or other means by which they may be enabled to travel.

Like the Infusoria, these vegetable forms increase by self-division, and in a transverse direction; but it would seem to be a somewhat difficult matter to divide a circle transversely so make of it two circles: yet this is ac

as to