If you were asked to give =the signs of life in an animal=, it is likely that you would think at once of =its power of breathing, eating, growing, and moving=. Now when we ask the same question about plants the answer does not appear to be quite so easy to find, because at first sight plants do not seem to do any of these things except the growing. However, ~the same answer would be quite correct for plants~, as well as animals, for they are really able to breathe, eat, grow, and move; all you have to do is to watch them in the right way to see that this is the case. We are not in the habit of treating dry seeds as though they were alive; beans are stored away in sacks all the winter and may be left for months in dry cellars, and the precious seeds which will give us our beautiful flowers in the summer are put away in boxes through the winter. Yet you know that if you place seeds in the earth and keep them warm and moist, little plants will come up and will grow. What gives them the power of growth which is not possessed by the stones and earth around them? Warmth and moisture alone could not put this power into the seeds when we planted them. This power, which only belongs to living things, was there all the time, but was lying asleep, shut in and protected so that it was not easily disturbed till suitable conditions made it time for it to wake. You know when you are asleep that you do not eat or run about, but simply lie still and breathe. This is what the seed was doing before the baby plant began to break through its protecting coat and show itself to the world as a living thing. Let us watch some of these young plants just waking up to activity, and see if we can find in them the four signs we take as being the tests of animal life. First let us see if we can show that they =breathe=. You know that when you breathe you take air into your lungs, use some of it, and give the rest out. You can show that plants also use up some part of the air. If you would actually prove this to yourself or anyone else, take some peas or beans, soak them in water, and leave them in damp sawdust for a day or two till the tiny plant has just begun to show. Then put them on wet blotting-paper in a jar which has a very well-fitting cork with no leakage, and through which a fine bent glass tube is fitted. Place a small tube of caustic potash in the jar. Then place the end of the bent tube in a dish of water, which acts better if you have dissolved some caustic potash in it (~see~ fig. 1). Once it has begun to rise in the tube, mark the level of the water with a small label. If then you mark it daily the labels will show how much water has risen each day, and the amount of water rising in the tube shows us the amount of air which has been absorbed by the growing beans. This tells us, therefore, that ~air is absorbed by plants~ in the course of their growth. But there is another thing we must notice about breathing which is equally important.