54 WONDERS OF ORGANIC LIFE. 



the night, and protected by the calyx, open on 

 the dawn of day, or as the sun gathers strength! 

 How many turn to the glorious orb, in its 

 course from rising to setting ! Yet they feel 

 not, — theirs is a life of irritability, subject to 

 the influence of certain stimulants. Venus's 

 fly-trap, the sensitive plant, and others, afford 

 examples of this species of vitality, which has 

 obtained for them a kind of popular celebrity. 

 The contractibility of celery, when torn or 

 divided at the dinner table, is familiarly known 

 to all, or rather to most who observe things 

 around them. The life of irritability, then, is 

 common to animal and vegetable tissue — mani- 

 festing itself by contractile or expansive move- 

 ments ; and we think that the predominance of 

 this life is most marked, most striking, that is, 

 it most arrests our attention, where nerves are 

 indistinct, or altogether wanting. Thus several 

 of the lower animals move, .avoid injuries, seize 

 their prey, expand or contract, and yet have 

 neither brain nor apparent nerves; nay, the rays 

 of the sun excite them, and some, if cut into 

 pieces, become so many distinct entities. No one, 

 we believe, will assert that even nervous mole- 

 cules, setting aside nervous threads, are part 

 and parcel of vegetable organization, and yet in 

 vegetables the life of irritability is most con- 

 spicuous. Who that keeps plants in a window 

 can fail to remark how they throw themselves 

 towards the light ? In common language, they are 

 said to be " drawn" by the light; but in reality, 

 they seek to gain the influence of the light. This 



