loss of the original freely jointed character of the body.  A tapeworm as an example of internal parasites is an extremely degenerate form which lacks a digestive tract, because this is superfluous in an animal which lives bathed in the nutrient fluids of its host.  Comparing it in other respects with other low wormlike creatures, it appears to be a relative of peculiar simple worms with complete organization and independence of life.  All these degenerate forms enlarge our conception of adaptation by adding the essential point that progress is not always the result of evolution.  Indeed we have learned this in the case of vestigial and rudimentary structures of higher forms like whales, and now we find that entire animals may degenerate as a result of changes no less adaptive than progressive modifications.

Passing by other invertebrate groups made up of species arranged like higher animals in smaller and larger branches according to their degree of fundamental similarity, we arrive at a place in the scale occupied by two-layer animals without the highly developed and clearly differentiated organic systems of the forms above.  The fresh-water animal Hydra exemplifies the creatures of this level, where also we find sea-anemones and the soft polyps which form corals and coral reefs by their combined skeletons. Hydra is an animal to which we must return again and again as we study one or another aspect of organic evolution.  In general form it is a hollow cylinder closed at one end, by which it attaches itself, while at the upper end, surrounded by a group of tentacles, is the mouth which leads to the central cavity.  The wall of this simple body is composed of two layers of cells, between which there is a gelatinous layer rarely invaded by cells.  The inner layer lines the central space into which food organisms are thrust by the tentacles, and it is concerned primarily with digestion.  The outer layer comprises cells for protection and sensation primarily.  Cells of both layers have muscular prolongations which by their operation enable the whole animal to change its form and to move from one place to another.

It may seem that such an animal is totally unlike any of the higher and more complex types.  In certain respects, however, it is identical with the other forms inasmuch as it performs all of the eight biological tasks demanded by nature.  It is also similar in so far as its inner layer, like the innermost sheet of cells in higher forms, is concerned with problems of taking and preparing food, while the protective outer layer resembles in function the outermost covering of all animals higher in the scale.  Beyond these a still more fundamental agreement is found in its cellular composition.