as phylogenetic stages of evolution--first the primary fore-kidneys (_protonephros_), in the middle the secondary primitive kidneys (_mesonephros_), and last the tertiary after-kidneys (_metanephros_). The latter are only reached in the three highest classes of vertebrates, reptiles, birds, and mammals. Mollusks also have a couple of compact kidneys. They are developed from a pair of nephridia, the funnels of which open internally into the heart-pouch (the remainder of the reduced body-cavity); at the back they open outward. The crustacea also have generally a pair of renal canals. On the other hand, the protracheata (the stem-forms of the air-tube animals) have segmental nephridia, a pair to each joint inherited from their annelid ancestors. The rest of the tracheata, the myriapods, spiders, and insects, have, instead of these, Malpighi tubes, funnel-shaped glands that arise from the entodermal rectum, sometimes one pair or less, sometimes a number in a cluster. While most plants are purely plasmodomous, and most animals plasmophagous, there are nevertheless in both organic kingdoms a number of species (especially the lower) whose metabolism has assumed peculiar forms by their relations to other organisms. To this class belong especially the saprosites and parasites. By saprosites are understood those plants and animals which feed entirely or mostly on the corpses of other animals, or the decomposed matter which is unfit for the food of higher animals. Among the unicellular protists many of the bacteria, especially, belong to this class, and also many fungilla (_phycomycetes_); among the metaphyta the fungi (mycetes), and among the metazoa the sponges. I have already spoken of the many peculiarities of metabolism in the ubiquitous bacteria; while many of them cause putrefaction, they at the same time feed on the parts of other organisms which have died. The fungi feed for the most part on the decayed remains of plants and the products of putrefaction which accumulate on the ground. In this character of scavengers they play the same important part on land as the sponges do at the bottom of the sea. But a number of small groups of the higher plants and animals have, as a secondary habit, turned to saprositism. Among the metaphyta we have especially the monotropea (to which our native asparagus, _monotropa hypopitys_, belongs) and many orchids (_neottia_, _corallorhiza_). As they find their plasm directly in the decayed matter in the woods, they have lost their chlorophyll and green leaves. Among the metazoa many of the vermalia, and some of the higher animals, such as the rain-worm and many tube-dwelling annelids (the mud-eaters, _limicolæ_), etc., live on putrid matter. The organs which their nearest relatives use for obtaining, breaking up, and digesting food (eyes, jaws, teeth, digestive glands) have been entirely or mostly lost by these saprosites. Many of them form a transitional type to the parasites.