134 REVIEWS. [April, 



caused by so many adherent bodies. I speak this with diffidence, well know- 

 ing how easily eiTor creeps into such observations, and also how very rarely a 

 naturalist will find that the deductions of those who most differ from him 

 are in reality less accurate than liis own, so seldom can individual examina- 

 tion include all possible circumstances, and all accidents of time or season. 

 This much, however, I can confidently advance, — that when the leaves do, 

 as described, contract, they present a flaccid and decidedly shrivelled ap- 

 pearance J and that gradually, as a fresh supply of moisture is secreted, 

 they resume their natural position, and the plumper appearance of their 

 somewhat fleshy substance. Yet at the same time we must not lose sight 

 of the fact, that the Droseracea are a pre-eminently irritable family, num- 

 bering amongst them, as they do, the celebrated A^enus's fly-trap {Bioncca 

 Muscipula), which folds its leaves together if then- glandular hairs be but 

 touched. 



" The Sundew, or at least the round-leaved species (Z>. rotimdifolia)^ 

 has another veiy beautiful peculiarity, and one which is fall of poetical 

 ' suggestiveness : ' the debcate bttle flower-buds are racemed, and but one 

 blossom opens at a time : that is to say, as the raceme gradually rises, the 

 bud which is at the apex of that portion of it Avhich has become upright, 

 imfolds itself to the sun, from which it takes its name ; but if the sun do 

 not shine forth on the day on which the flower is ready to expand, it never 

 opens at all ; on the following day another bud has reached the apex of the 

 scape, like the last, to unfold at the right moment, or to perish, and give 

 way in turn to the succeeding bud. If we take up, says the ' British 

 Flora ' of Sir W. J. Hooker, and read this fact as a mere botanical occur- 

 rence, it is impossible not to gaze with interest on the phenomenon ; but 

 if we make it ' point a moral,' how much significance it acquires ! How 

 many an earnest, yet too weakly shrinking a mind, has been wrecked, 

 because some one amongst its fellows has not been prompt to seize the 

 fitting moment for action or support 1 How many an opportunity has been 

 lost, never to be regained, which, if we had but commanded strength 

 enough to embrace, might, perchance, have saved from hopeless ruin some 

 heart as upright as, though perchance less firm than our own ! How 

 many a life has been saddened, nay, blighted, by the recollection that 

 greater promptitude on our own parts might have saved some noble nature, 

 Avhich it was ' but that once ' in our power to do ; or how some momentary 

 relaxation on our part of self-control, has caused some over-sensitive, and, 

 it may be, morbidly-conscientious spirit, to shiink into itself, never again 

 to unfold the aspirations or inquiries which, if fostered by the blessed sun- 

 shine of a kind and tender spirit, at tJmt moment, might have led it un- 

 changeably to the better way ! Would that all amongst us were Nature's 

 pupils, and that every student of Nature treasm-ed up his knowledge of the 

 secrets of the blossoming of the Sundew, in his vei-y inmost heart ; making 



