Sir y<zgadis Bose 33 



suggests the flutterings of a living creature struggling 

 for life. 



Thousands of years ago Indian doctors discovered that 

 a very small amount of the poison from the fangs of a 

 cobra administered in the form of a solution had the effect 

 of reviving dying patients. This explains why it has been 

 the custom to take the body of an Indian who has died 

 from cobra bite and to place it on a raft and send it down- 

 stream, the idea being that he may later wake up. Sir 

 Jagadis has discovered that this solution of cobra poison 

 will quicken the heart-beats of a plant. 



The human tongue is very sensitive to electric currents, 

 and in this respect a Hindu is on an average twice as sen- 

 sitive as a European. It has been found by experiment 

 that different individuals and different races vary enor- 

 mously in their response to such stimuli as electric 

 currents, as also in their response to changes of tempera- 

 ture, of pressure, and of light. Some people can hear the 

 high-pitched squeak of the bat, others cannot ; some are 

 intensely sensitive to draughts, others get a headache 

 before a thunderstorm. The ant perceives the rays 

 beyond the violet which are invisible to man, and many 

 birds seem to have a magnetic sense which guides them 

 on long flights out of sight of land. 



In the same way plants are found to vary greatly in 

 their powers of perception. Sir Jagadis has shown, for 

 instance, that a tree can notice the passing of a cloud 

 between itself and the sun. With his delicate instru- 

 ments he has proved that it reacts — you might almost 

 say ' shivers.' And plants are far more sensitive to 

 electric currents than man. The biophytum, for instance, 

 has been proved to be eight times more sensitive than 

 even the most sensitive human tongue. 



On the other hand, plants are slower in their response to 

 such stimuli. In man or other animals there is an appre- 

 ciable time between the spur and the reaction. If you 



