188 ROYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA 



and that continued for a few years would easily establish a little stronger 

 vitality on the riglit side over the left, and would fully account for the 

 difference previously noted. 



The hind legs in the horse which are so commonly white as com- 

 pared with the number of fore legs white may be due to the greater dis- 

 tance from the heart, the centre of force of the supply. 



The conclusion the writer comes to from the observations recorded 

 are that the right side of the bodies of man and the quadrupeds are a 

 trifle stronger than the left, that this difference is caused by the little 

 difference in the directness of the blood supply. 



And that this difference accounts for the preponderance of right- 

 handed men over left-handed. 



And that the habit once established by natural causes has been in- 

 creased in man by heredity and education. 



But the cause of this determination of a slightly increased supply 

 of blood is still unexplained. 



Still the question, Why ? remains. 



Reference and illustration has been made to plants and a weakness 

 phown to exist there when the normal colour is absent. If now we go 

 further we find the snail shell all rotating in tlie direction of the hands 

 of a watch, that is, from left *o right, but if the snail be watched in its 

 egg during development it will be found to slowly rotate in the opposite 

 direction, the direction from right to left, the writer has often watched 

 them under the microscope for hours before they escapee! from the shell. 



If now we take a hyacinth or an onion and strip off the leaves, we 

 find the scars left on the flattened disk arranged so as to produce an ap- 

 pearance like the back of an engine turned watch with curves proceeding 

 from the outside to the centre in the direction of the hands of a watch. 

 The same appearance is found in the sunflower disk (Helianthus 

 annul) when the flowers are fallen, and the seeds are ripened they will 

 be found to be arranged in .-imilar lines. In these cases the axis of 

 growth instead of being elongated, is flattened down into a disk, with 

 the leaves in their normal places and with the buds in the axils of the 

 leaves, in the sunflower the seeds are largest at the outside of the circle 

 and get smaller as they go up to the top of the stem represented by the 

 centre of the disk further away from source of supply. 



If the fine point of a young pine or larch tree be looked at from the 

 upper end towards the root the branches or leaves will be seen to have a 

 similar spiral arrangement. 



In the Bryophyllum Feltatumthe leaves are thick and fleshy and 

 are deeply crenatcd on the edge and stay hanging on the plant till they 

 are quite old and then fall off. If the leaf happens to fall on a damp 



