Meanwhile, I hope - though I dare not say I trust - to see the day when the boys of each of our large schools shall join - like those of Marlborough and Clifton - the same freemasonry; and have their own Naturalists' Clubs; nay more; when our public schools and universities shall awake to the real needs of the age, and - even to the curtailing of the time usually spent in not learning Latin and Greek - teach boys the rudiments at least of botany, zoology, geology, and so forth; and when the public opinion, at least of the refined and educated, shall consider it as ludicrous - to use no stronger word - to be ignorant of the commonest facts and laws of this living planet, as to be ignorant of the rudiments of two dead languages. All honour to the said two languages. Ignorance of them is a serious weakness; for it implies ignorance of many things else; and indeed, without some knowledge of them, the nomenclature of the physical sciences cannot be mastered. But I have got to discover that a boy's time is more usefully spent, and his intellect more methodically trained, by getting up Ovid's Fasti with an ulterior hope of being able to write a few Latin verses, than in getting up Professor Rolleston's "Forms of Animal Life," or any other of the excellent Scientific Manuals for beginners, which are now, as I said, happily so numerous.
May that day soon come; and an old dream of mine, and of my scientific friends, be fulfilled at last.
And so I end this little book, hoping, even praying, that it may encourage a few more labourers to go forth into a vineyard, which those who have toiled in it know to be full of ever-fresh health, and wonder and simple joy, and the presence and the glory of Him whose name is LOVE.
APPENDIX.
PLATE I.
ZOOPHYTA. POLYZOA.
THE forms of animal life which are now united in an independent class, under the name Polyzoa, so nearly resemble the Hydroid Zoophytes in general form and appearance that a casual observer may suppose them to be nearly identical. In all but the more recent works, they are treated as distinct indeed, but still included under the general term "ZOOPHYTES." The animals of both groups are minute, polypiform creatures, mostly living in transparent cells, springing from the sides of a stem which unites a number of individuals in one common life, and grows in a shrub-like form upon any submarine body, such as a shell, a rock, a weed, or even another polypidom to which it is parasitically attached. Each polype, in both classes, protrudes from and retreats within its cell by an independent action, and when protruded puts forth a circle of tentacles whose motion round the mouth is the means of securing nourishment. There are, however, peculiarities in the structure of the Polyzoa which seem to remove them from Zoophytology to a place in the system of nature more nearly connected with Molluscan types. Some of them come so near to the compound ascidians that they have been termed, as an order, "Zoophyta ascidioida."The simplest form of polype is that of a fleshy bag open at one end, surmounted by a circle of contractile threads or fingers called tentacles. The plate shows, on a very minute scale, at figs. 1, 3, and 6, several of these little polypiform bodies protruding from their cells. But the Hydra or Fresh-water Polype has no cell, and is quite unconnected with any root thread, or with other individuals of the same species. It is perfectly free, and so simple in its structure, that when the sac which forms its body is turned inside out it will continue to perform the functions of life as before. The greater part, however, of these Hydraform Polypes, although equally simple as individuals, are connected in a compound life by means of their variously formed POLYPIDOM, as the branched system of cells is termed. The Hydroid Zoophytes are represented in the first plate by the following examples.
HYDROIDA.
SERTULARIA ROSEA. PL. I. FIG. 6.
A species which has the cells in pairs on opposite sides of the central tube, with the openings turned outwards. In the more enlarged figure is seen a septum across the inner part of each cell which forms the base upon which the polype rests. Fig. 6 Bindicates the natural size of the piece of branch represented; but it must be remembered that this is only a small portion of the bushy shrub.
CAMPANULARIA SYRINGA. PL. I. FIG. 8.
This Zoophyte twines itself parasitically upon a species of Sertularia. The cells in this species are thrown out at irregular intervals upon flexible stems which are wrinkled in rings. They consist of lengthened, cylindrical, transparent vases.
CAMPANULARIA VOLUBILIS. PL. I. FIG. 9.
A still more beautiful species, with lengthened foot-stalks ringed at each end. The polype is remarkable for the protrusion and contractile power of its lips. It has about twenty knobbed tentacula.
POLYZOA.
Among Polyzoa the animal's body is coated with a membraneous covering, like that of the Tunicated Mollusca, but which is a continuation of the edge of the cell, which doubles back upon the body in such a manner that when the animal protrudes from its cell it pushes out the flexible membrane just as one would turn inside out the finger of a glove. This oneness of cell and polype is a distinctive character of the group. Another is the higher organization of the internal parts. The mouth, surrounded by tentacles, leads by gullet and gizzard through a channel into a digesting stomach, from which the rejectable matter passes upwards through an intestinal canal till it is discharged near the mouth.
The tentacles also differ much from those of true Polypes. Instead of being fleshy and contractile, they are rather stiff, resembling spun glass, set on the sides with vibrating cilia, which by their motion up one side and down the other of each tentacle, produce a current which impels their living food into the mouth. When these tentacles are withdrawn, they are gathered up in a bundle, like the stays of an umbrella. Our Plate I. contains the following examples of Polyzoa.
