No. 6.] HOOKER — CARNIVOROUS HABITS OF PLANTS. 351 



the descriptions of those medieval statues which opened to em- 

 brace and stab their victims, is substantially correct, but erro- 

 neous in some particulars. I prefer to trace out our knowledu'e 

 of the facts in historical order, because it is extremely important 

 to realise in so doing how much our appreciation of tolerably 

 simple matters may be iufluenccd by the prepossessions that 

 occupy our mind. 



We have a striking- illustration of this in the statement pub- 

 lished by Linnaeus a few years afterwards. All the facts which 

 1 have detailed to you were in his possession ; yet he was evi- 

 dently unable to bring himself to believe that Nature intended 

 the plant — to use Ellis's words — -' to receive some nourishment 

 from the animals it seizes;" and he accordingly declared, that as 

 soon as the insects ceased to struggle, the leaf opened and let 

 them go. He onlj' saw in these wonderful actions an extreme 

 case of sensitiveness in the leaves, which caused them to fold up 

 when irritated, just as the sensitive plant does; and he conse- 

 quently regarded the capture of the disturbing insect as something 

 merely accidental and of no importance to the plant. He was, 

 however, too sagacious to accept Ellis's sensational account of 

 the couj) de grace which the insects received from the three stiff 

 hairs in the centre of each lobe of the leaf. 



Linnaeus's authority overbore criticism, if any were offered ; 

 and his statements about the behaviour of the leaves were faith- 

 I'ully copied from book to book. 



Broussonet (in 178-1) attempted to explain the contraction of 

 the leaves by supposing that the captured insect pricked them, 

 and so let out the fluid which previously kept them turgid and 

 expanded. 



Dr. Darwin (1761) was contented to suppose that the Dionaea 

 surrounded itself with insect traps to prevent depredations upon 

 its flowers. 



Sixty years after Linnaeus wrote, however, an able botanist, 

 the Rev. Dr. Curtis (dead but a few years since) resided at 

 Wilmington,. in North Carolina, the head-quarters of this very 

 local plant. In 1834 he published an account of it in the Boston 

 Journal of Natural History, which is a model of accurate 

 scientific observation. This is what he said: — "Each half of 

 the leaf is a little concave on the inner side, where are placed 

 three delicate hair like organs, in such an order that an insect 

 can hardly traverse it witliout interfering with one of them, when 



