The earth is the beginning and the end of plants and the roots are always with us."

Truly," said the Potato Bug, "you have a pleasant home, but give me the sunshine and fresh air, my six legs, and my striped wings, and you are welcome to it all."

"You are welcome to them all," answered the worms. We are contented with smooth and shining bodies, with which we can wriggle our way through the soft brown earth. We like our task of keeping the earth right for the plants, and we will work and rest happily here."

The Potato Bug went his way, and said to his brothers, "What do you think? I have been talking with Earthworms who would not be Potato Bugs if they could." And they all shook their heads in wonder, for they thought that to be Potato Bugs was the grandest and happiest thing in the world.

From Little Meadow People.

XXVII. THE HYDRA POLYP

IN the hydra we have taken a step upward on the life ladder, for the hydra can be seen without a microscope, and it keeps a form of its own, which I should think quite desirable.

It is of a greenish color, but you would look in vain for eyes and ears, hands and feet, or even a proper head and mouth.

It is said that some learned man once carefully turned one of these little beings. inside out, as you could turn a glove. Strange to say, it did not so much as think

it

of dying or even having a good little time of illness, but fell to eating what was given it in the only way knew how, that is, as the amœba eats.

Either because it could not, or did not wish to, it never took the trouble to get right side out again, which showed that, like the amoeba, it was all stomach when it got hungry.

This little hydra polyp is entirely harmless, but it has been the subject of a great many disputes among men. We must use our imaginations a little and try

to follow the story, which I think is the best sort of fairy tale because it is all truth.

Let Hydra tell it himself:

Being greenish in color, I was suspected of taking something from the nature storehouse which only plants have leave to wear. It was the chlorophyll that makes leaves green.

There was another reason. I was fond of a kind of food which other creatures did not eat at all, or, if they did, only when mixed with something else.

"Now see what troubles these two things got me into. There was a fungus family that lived near me, a humble but respectable family of plants, and I was entirely willing to associate with them. But the question came up whether I was an animal or a plant, and until my case was decided there was no rest for our family.

"You might go out into the woods without being mistaken for trees; but a hydra polyp and these fungi were both on such low steps of nature's staircase that no one knew whether both were plants, or one was animal. And I was the one in doubt.

"Think how it would seem if one of the fungi children had said, 'Come over here and take breakfast with us,' for I could move a bit and they could n't,

THE HYDRA POLYP

69

-and if when we were eating quietly one of the creatures I thought I belonged among, only that they were n't greenish and did n't eat carbonic acid, should say with a sneer, 'Stay with the green things and eat their strange stuff, you are not one of us at all.'

"The worst of it was that we ourselves did n't know. Millions of hydras lived and died without knowing whether they were plants or animals, just as sponges did.

"Finally wise men made the line between so clear that now plants keep their own side of the stairway and animals theirs; and as much is made of us beginners as human people make of their babies, because we show the beginnings of life.

"There are other polyp families that share with us; they have a way of taking something from the sea with their food which makes hard stems for them. Their work gives them the name coral builders, and what they build lasts and is as solid as rock."

XXVIII. THE USEFUL SPONGE

A LITTLE way below the hydra and coral polyps in the art of living is a creature that should interest you. It has given you the sponge for your bath.

The sponge has so few animal signs that it was disputed about as plant or animal till microscopes came to help settle differences of opinion.

You have never seen a sponge animal, any more than you would see a dog by looking at its skeleton. You have what remains when the sponge has died and all its soft flesh has been taken away.

A baby sponge can be born without dividing its mother into two! When it is ready to care for itself the mother throws it out of her mouth! That is like launching a tiny boat. Little soft hairs paddle it about for a while, and when it becomes tired it settles down till it strikes the bottom of the sea. It has no eyes to see where it is going, but when it finds something to rest against, it clings and stays.

There is plenty of food in the moving water, and it begins to grow, just as you do, with nothing but its