In the matter of the feeding of the two great living worlds we might
perchance light upon some adequate grounds for making up the one
kingdom from the other. What the consideration of form, movement,
chemical composition, and microscopic structure could not effect for
us in this way, it might be supposed the investigation of the diet of
animals and plants would render clear. Our hopes of distinguishing the
one group from the other by reference to the food on which animals and
plants subsist are, however, dashed to the ground; and the diet
question leaves us, therefore, when it has been discussed, in the same
quandary as before.
Nevertheless, it is an interesting story, this of the nutrition of
animals and plants. A large amount of scientific information is to be
gleaned from such a study, which may very well be commenced by our
having regard to the matters on which a _green_ plant feeds. I
emphasize the word "green," because it so happens that when a plant
has no chlorophyl (as green color is named in the plant world) its
feeding is of diverse kind to that which a green plant exhibits. The
mushroom or other fungus may be taken as an illustration of a plant
which represents the non-green race, while every common plant, from a
bit of grass to an oak tree, exemplifies the green-bearing order of
the vegetable tribes.
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