14 POPULAR SCRIPTURE ZOOLOGY.

approach in their habits and formation to the vegetable
kingdom. These kingdoms were formerly considered so
completely separated from each other, as to preclude the
possibility of their being confounded together; but later
discoveries have proved that these apparently impassable
barriers were not raised by the hand of Nature, and that
there are connecting links so fine and delicate, as to render
very difficult the question of where each begins and ends.
Mr. Rymer Jones thus beautifully expresses this uncer-
tainty with regard to the animal and vegetable kingdoms :—
“Light and darkness are distinct from each other, and no
one possessed of eyesight would be in danger of con-
founding night with day; yet he who, looking upon the
evening sky, would attempt to point out precisely the line
of separation between the failing day and the approaching
night, would have a difficult task to perform. Thus it is
with the physiologist, who endeavours to draw the boundary
between these two great kingdoms of Nature; for so gra-
dually and imperceptibly do their confines blend, that it is
at present utterly out of his power to define exactly where
vegetable existence ceases and animal life begins.”

In Maunder’s ‘Treasury of Natural History’ (a most valu-
able assistant to the student) the animal kingdom is thus