28 DARWINISM. 



anabas scandens, can climb eight or ten feet up the 

 trunk of a palm 1 . 



The choice of food, the choice of habitation, the 

 construction of dwelling-places for themselves or their 

 offspring, methods of defence, methods of attack, are 

 variously carried out by myriads of species. The pro- 

 cesses employed, in man we call for the most part 

 rational ; in the lower animals we call them instinctive ; 

 but there are processes employed for these self-same 

 objects by vegetables as well as by men. For plants, 

 in one sense stationary, travel towards water by their 

 roots, towards light by their branches ; they assimilate 

 the elements of nutriment that suit them, rejecting 

 others. The Sensitive plant shrinks from the touch, 

 Venus's fly-trap closes round unwary insects and de- 

 stroys them. Tendrils fasten on the supports that are 

 offered them. Trees keep in their delicate blossoms 

 till the weather is genial. Many a corolla folds care- 

 fully round stamens and pistils when the chilly twilight 

 approaches. 



Pass from proceedings like these to the swimming 

 movements of a beheaded Dytiscus 2 , and other reflex 

 actions in animals, to the food-seeking movements of the 

 tentaculse of the Hydra or fresh-water Polype, which 



1 ' Origin of Species,' p. 213 ; ' Principles of Biology,' vol. i. pp. 392, 

 394. The walking-fishes of India and the mud-fishes of Ceylon and 

 New Zealand are described in an interesting article by Dr. Day of 

 Torquay, in 'All the Year Round' for June nth, 1870. Dr. Day 

 seems to think the climbing powers of the anabas scandens less satis- 

 factorily attested than other attributes of these extraordinary groups. 



2 Carpenter, 'Animal Physiology,' chap. 14. 



