BEPRESENTATIVE GOV'T 501 REPRODUCTION REPRESENTATIVE GOVERN- MENT, that form of government in which either the whole of a nation, or that portion of it whose superior intelli- gence affords a sufficient guarantee for the proper exercise of the privilege, is called on to elect representatives or depu- ties charged with the power of control- ling the public expenditure, imposing taxes, and assisting the executive in the framing of laws. See Constitution. REPRESENTATIVES, HOUSE OF, one of the branches of the Congress, also known as the Lower House and the Pop- ular House. The members of this branch are elected directly by popular vote. In it is vested by the National Constitution the sole right to originate laws concerning the finances of the coun- try. The Committee on Ways and Means of the House is the original source of all tariff legislation, and all bills providing for the raising or expenditure of public moneys have their origin in the House. In each of these two forms of legislation the House has the limited co-operation of the Senate, viz., the Senate may amend a tariff bill or resolution appropriating public moneys in the line either of in- creasing or decreasing specific amounts. The House has the prialege of passing on these Senate amendments, and if it declines to accept any part of such changes, it is customary to appoint a Conference Committee consisting of an equal number of members from the House and Senate, to whom the disputed sub- ject is referred, and the report of this committee is generally accepted in the light of a compromise by both houses. The membership of the House is based on the population of the country as ascer- tained decennially by the census, and therefore changes every 10 years. REPRIEVE, the suspension or delay of the carrying out of a sentence (gen- erally of death) on a prisoner. It is popularly but erroneously supposed to signify a permanent remission, or com- mutation of a capital sentence. REPRISE, in maritime law, a ship recaptured from an enemy or pirate. If recaptured within 24 hours of her cap- ture she must be restored to her owners in whole; if after that period, she is the lawful prize of her recaptors. REPRODUCTION, the term applied to the whole process whereby life is con- tinued from generation to generation. One of the characteristics of life is its continuity; the races of animals and the orders of plants live on without marked change for centuries; by slow modifica- tions they may be enriched or impover- ished, increased or thinned, but there is no breach of continuity. All the forms of life seem to evolutionists like twigs on one many-branched tree; they are gen- etically related by near or distant bonds of kinship, and in a very real sense each generation is continuous with those which come before and after it. Modes of Reproduction. — Separated fragments of a sponge or cuttings from the rose, the buds of a hydra, or the bulb- ils of a lily, the eggs of a bird, and the seeds of plants are alike able to grow into new organisms; and thus we see that the common fact about all kinds of reproduction is that parts of one organ- ism are separated to form or to help to form new lives. In many cases what is separated from the parent life is simply part of its body, an overgrowth or a definite bud, which, being set free, is able to I'eproduce the whole of which it is a representative sample. This is called asexual reproduction. In most cases, however, the parents give origin to spe- cial reproductive elements — egg cells and male cells — which combine and are to- gether able to grow into a new life. This is called sexual reproduction. The simplest forms of reproduction are found among the single-celled plants and animals. There we may find an or- ganism like Schizogenes, multiplying by breakage, reproducing by rupture, pre- sumably when the cell has overgrown its normal size; in others numerous buds are liberated at once, as in Arcella and Pelomyxa; in many, familiarly in the yeast plant, one bud is formed at a time; in most the cell divides into two or many daughter cells. The cast-off ^ arm of a starfish may regrow the entire animal with a readiness that suggests a habit; some kinds of worms (e. g., Nemerteans) break into pieces, each of which is able to regrow the whole; large pieces of a sea anemone or of a sponge are some- times separated off and form new organ- isms. But the usual mode of asexual repro- duction is by the formation of definite buds. When these buds remain continu- ous, colonial organisms result, like many sponges, most hydroids, Siphonophora like the Portuguese man-of-war, many corals, almost all the Polyzoa, and many Tunicates. The runners of a strawberry and the suckers which grow around a rose bush illustrate the same state. But in a few plants, like the liverwort and the tiger lily, a kind of bud may be de- tached, and thus begin a new life. It is among animals, however, that the libera- tion of buds is best illustrated, for this mode of reproduction occurs in hydra and many hydroids, in some "worms," and in Polyzoa, and even in animals as highly organized as Tunicates. Budding is
