). His list
includes, besides the animals already mentioned, two species of
Radiolarians, the common green sea anemone (_Anthea cereus_, var.
_Smaragdina_), the remarkable Gephyrean, _Bonellia viridis_, a Polychaete
worm, _Chaetoperus_, and even a Crustacean, _Idotea viridis_.
The main interest of the question of course lies in its bearing on the
long-disputed relations between plants and animals; for, since neither
locomotion nor irritability is peculiar to animals; since many
insectivorous plants habitually digest solid food; since cellulose, that
most characteristic of vegetable products, is practically identical with
the tunicin of Ascidians, it becomes of the greatest interest to know
whether the chlorophyl of animals preserves its ordinary vegetable
function of effecting or aiding the decomposition of carbonic anhydride
and the synthetic production of starch. For although it had long been
known that _Euglena_ evolved oxygen in sunlight, the animal nature of
such an organism was merely thereby rendered more doubtful than ever.
In 1878 I had the good fortune to find at Roscoff the material for
the solution of the problem in the grass-green planarian, _Convoluta
schultzii_, of which multitudes are to be found in certain localities on
the coast, lying on the sand, covered only by an inch or two of water,
and apparently basking in the sun.
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