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they occur in a regular order, and have a beginning and an end, which we call birth and death. When born, the living

creature feeds on material from Cycle of changes; outside, which we call food; it growth, death. increases in size, or grows for a longer or shorter space of time. Afterwards it ceases to grow, it begins to decay, it finally dies. But life is continued by certain small portions of the creature becoming separate from it, and beginning life for themselves. So

there is a continuous succession of Reproduction. living creatures kept up; the animal creation

we shall not attempt to include or to exclude matter by any hard boundary line; Classification but our endeavour will be to give and natural history. such reasoning and such facts as may best conduce to an understanding of the animal creation. As far as possible the information possessed by every one will be appealed to, and the striking facts which occur about us every day, whether noticed or unnoticed, will be enlarged upon.

It is evident that we need to begin by getting a correct idea of what is meant by an animal. Every animal of course shares Characters of living creatures. with every plant the characters "of being alive. Each member of the living kingdom has a more complicated chemical composition than anything which is not alive. But further than this, it is especially noticeable that all living things are undergoing changes, whether quick or slow, and that these changes are unlike those of dead matter, for VOL. II.

MOCKING-BIRD.

(Orpheus polyglottus.)

is constantly being reproduced. It is not necessary for every animal and plant thus to give rise to new ones : many human beings, as well as other creatures, die without leaving offspring; still a sufficient number leave representatives behind them to keep up the series.

DISTINCTIONS BETWEEN ANIMALS AND PLANTS.. In common life, and before receiving any special instruction, no one finds a difficulty in distinguishing between animals and plants. Contrast the dog, cat, or horse with the oak. The former can run about, can see, hear, and make sounds; the oak, on the contrary, is quite passive as to all these things. animal gets and swallows food from without, guided by sight, hearing, and taste; he can attack other animals or defend himself against their onset by means of his limbs; the oak can fulfil none of these functions.

The

these contain minute solid particles which really form their food. For example, an oyster merely has sea-water continually passing through its nearly-closed shell; it has the means, however, of picking out and swallowing the portions of suitable food contained in the water. This test will help us to include various creatures in the animal kingdom when we find out that their food is solid. The sponges, for instance, have currents of water entering and leaving their bodies as regularly as in the case of the oyster; and by careful examination it is proved that they feed similarly by taking in the solid food that floats in the water.

Most of the other features which we named as contrasts between the dog and the oak would fail us somewhere or Insufficient other in the animal kingdom. distinctions. Many animals, including the sponges and corals, never move from their position in adult life, although the original creature which founded the organism as we

know it, was able to travel for Locomotion. some time. And some undoubted plants are capable of locomotion.

sense.

Organs of offence.

Again, while many animals have distinct and wonderfully constructed eyes and ears, those which do not possess them Organs of are also very numerous. Some plants, moreover, show a remarkable sensitiveness to touch, if not to light and sound, and so have a similarity to the highest classes of animals. And just as there are animals that can wound and injure their enemies, so there are plants which can sting and prick or poison those who would do them harm. Thus we may have some idea of the difficulty there is in arriving at a satisfactory division between animals and plants, although it can only be properly understood by making personal acquaintance with the creatures that occasion this trouble. Every endeavour, however, of this kind is the means of adding to our knowledge, of enlarging our ideas and instructing our higher nature, which is the valuable end of study. Let us firmly seat in our minds the broad distinction belonging to animals, that they take food into their interior, and we shall possess the best practical guide to determining what creatures should be reckoned in the

animal kingdom. We may add that the food of animals is usually derived either from other animals or from plants, and then refer for fuller details to the lessons on Animal Physiology which will appear in later numbers of the UNIVERSAL INSTRUCTOR.

IDEAS OF CLASSIFICATION.

renew the first rough grouping of childhood, which knows animals by their legs, their teeth, their horns, their wings, their tails. Thus we find around us animals with two pairs of limbs, by which they can walk, run, jump, or climb, such as cats, horses, dogs, frogs. Others are distinguished by the possession of but two legs, combined with a pair of wings for flight, comprehensively denoted as birds; and we suppose few have ever failed to distinguish between these and butterflies and bees, which have six tiny legs and four slender wings. Spiders, again, will form a very noticeable group in childhood's observation, but perhaps it is not always set among their peculiarities that they have eight legs, while beetles have only six. The earthworm is another creature that always attracts attention by its sinuous motion and the series of rings it exhibits; while the snail is made familiar to every one by the oftrepeated operation of making it "draw in its horns." Here is a creature slowly gliding along, carrying its house on its back.

Legs: : wings: locomotion : shells.

Animals living in water are all popularly denoted as "fish"; yet not all of them even breathe by means of water, and

Aquatic animals.

the differences between them are very manifest. The lobster and crab, with their long legs and claws, and their hard external covering, strike us at once as being of a different nature from the soft scaly mackerel or herring, with their peculiar flat fins. Sharply contrasted with both these are the animals that live inside shells, whether composed of one piece, as in the whelk and periwinkle, or of two portions, as in the oyster and scallop. Besides these, the inland boy or girl will have found soft-bodied worms and leeches in fresh water; while the little seaside observer has open to him richer treasures cast up by the sea-the cuttle-fish, with its numerous arms clothed with strong suckers-the starfish, with its five rough arms extended, forming most of its body-the sea-urchin, with its hard dome covered with spines-the soft mass of the jelly-fish drying up almost to nothing on the strand in the sun of a summer's day. And besides all these, the sponge and the coral are distributed almost everywhere, as the evidences of life that has been, far away.

Life revealed by microscope.

With no aid but our natural powers of observation we can discern the striking features of these various members of the animal creation. But the microscope further reveals to us a world of life which we could not otherwise see in fresh and salt water, and on the surface of larger animals. Fortified with magnifying lenses, we perceive some small creatures stationary in water, others capable of rapid motion; many with weapons of offence and defence. Some of these appear as complex in their nature as the largest animals, while others are so simple as to astonish us. We thus learn more and more of the variety of the animal kingdom, and the minute compass of space within which the essentials of life can go on.

As our faculties ripen, and our reading and observation enlarge, we notice differences