The Cambridge natural history, Vol. 01 (of 10)Hickson, Sydney J. (Sydney John)
Science
The Cambridge natural history, Vol. 01 (of 10)
Hickson, Sydney J. (Sydney John)
Animals
and have the power of forming a green, yellow, or brown pigment; these are
called "plastids" or "chromatophores." They multiply by constriction within
the cell, displaying thereby a certain independent individuality. These
plastids have in presence of light the extraordinary power of deoxidising
carbon dioxide and water to form carbohydrates (or fats, etc.) and free
oxygen; and from these carbohydrates or fats, together with ammonium salts
or nitrates, etc., the vegetal protoplasm at large can build up all
necessary food matter. So that in presence of light of the right
quality[54] and adequate intensity, such coloured vegetal beings have the
capacity for building up their bodies and reserves from purely inorganic
materials. Coloured vegetal nutrition, then, is a process involving the
absorption of energy; the source from which this is derived in the bacteria
being very obscure at present. Nutrition by means of coloured plastids is
{37}distinguished as "holophytic," and that from lower substances, which,
however, contain organically combined carbon, as "saprophytic," for such
are formed by the death and decomposition of living beings. The third mode
of nutrition (found in some bacteria) from wholly inorganic substances,
including free nitrogen, has received no technical name. All three modes
are included in the term "autotrophic" (self-nourishing).
Vegetal feeders have a great tendency to accumulate reserves in insoluble
forms, such as starch, paramylum, and oil-globules on the one hand, and
pyrenoids, proteid crystals, aleurone granules on the other.
When an animal-feeding cell encysts or surrounds itself with a continuous
membrane, this is always of nitrogenous composition, usually containing the
glucosamide "chitin." The vegetal cell-wall, on the contrary, usually
consists, at least primarily, of the carbohydrate "cellulose"—the vegetal
cell being richly supplied with carbohydrate reserves, and drawing on them
to supply the material for its garment. This substance is what we are all
familiar with in cotton or tissue-paper.
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