Section 15. in an Ordinary Animal, Locomotion and Other Activity

predominate over nutritive processes, which fact we may express, in the terms just given, by saying that kataboly prevails over anaboly. An animal, as we have just explained, is an apparatus for the decomposition and partial oxydation of certain compounds, and these are obtained either directly or indirectly-- through other animals, in the case of meat-eaters-- from the vegetable kingdom. As the student will learn early in his botanical reading, the typical plant has, in its green colouring matter, chlorophyll, a trap to catch the radiating energy of the sun, and to accomplish, by the absorption of that energy, the synthesis (building up) of those organic compounds which the animal destroys. The typical plant is, on whole, passive and synthetic, or anabolic; the typical animal, active and katabolic; and the excess of kataboly over anaboly in the animal is compensated for by the anabolic work stored up, as it were, by the plant, which is, directly or indirectly, the animal's food.

2. The Alimentary Canal of the Rabbit