8o NATURE STUDY. 



for any active boy or girl who is willing to work hard for 

 additions to the collection another year. 



Everybody knows the May-beetles, or "June-bugs," 

 with their clumsy, blundering ways, and any bright child 

 would be likely to guess that the Goldsmith-beetle is a 

 cousin, and therefore to be pinned in the same row ; but 

 the Rose-bug belongs in the same row, too, and that is not 

 so easy to understand, until one learns in how many ways 

 the May-beetles and the Rose-bugs are alike. 



There are many more families of beetles, and some that 

 we have not mentioned are almost certain to be found in 

 our beetle box, but this lesson is already a long one. In 

 the next we will learn something more about them, par- 

 ticularly about the Click-beetles, the lyong-horns and the 

 kinds that live in the water. 



Intelligence of Plants. 



Prof. Shaler, of Harvard university, is of the opinion that plants 

 are possessed of intelligence that serves the purpose of self -protec- 

 tion and self-gratification to a very considerable degree. Recently 

 after discussing the automata observed in growing things he said : 



"We may accept the statement that our higher intelligence is 

 but the illuminated summit of man's nature as true, and extend it 

 by the observation that intelligence is normally unconscious, and 

 appears as conscious only after infancy, in our waking hours, and 

 not always then." In summing up the professor uses the follow- 

 ing sentences : " Looking toward the organic world in the manner 

 above suggested, seeing that the unpredjudiced view of life affords 

 no warrant for the notion that automata anywhere exist, tracing as 

 we may down to the lowest grade of the animal series what is fair 

 evidence of actions which we have to believe to be guided by some 

 form of intelligence, seeing that there is reason to conclude that 

 plants are derived from the same primitive stock as animals, we 

 are in no condition to say that intelligence cannot exist among 

 them. In fact, all that we can discern supports the view that 

 throughout the organic realm the intelligence that finds its fullest 

 expression in man is everywhere at work." 



