INSECTIVOROUS AND CLIMBING PLANTS. 309 



lines separate, or have always separated, organisms 

 which barely respond to impressions from those which 

 more actively and variously respond, and even from 

 those that consciously so respond this, as we all know, 

 is what the author of the works before us has under- 

 taken to demonstrate. Without reference here either 

 to that part of the series with which man is connected, 

 and in some sense or other forms a part of, or to that 

 lower limbo where the two organic kingdoms appar- 

 ently merge or whence, in evolutionary phrase, they 

 have emerged Mr. Darwin, in the present volumes, 

 directs our attention to the behavior of the highest 

 plants alone. He shows that some (and he might add 

 that all) of them execute movements for their own 

 advantage, and that some capture and digest living 

 prey. When plants are seen to move and to devour, 

 what faculties are left that are distinctively animal ? 



As to insectivorous or otherwise carnivorous plants, 

 we have so recently here discussed this subject before 

 it attained to all this new popularity that a brief ao^ 

 count of Mr. Darwin's investigation may suffice.* It 



1 The Nation, Nos. 457, 458, 1874. It was ia these somewhat light 

 and desultory, but substantially serious, articles that some account of 

 Mr. Darwin's observations upon the digestive powers of Drosera and 

 Dioncea first appeared ; in fact, their leading motive was to make suf- 

 ficient reference to his then unpublished discoveries to guard against 

 expected or possible claims tq priority. Dr. Burdon-Sanderson's lect- 

 ure, and the report hi Nature^ which first made them known in Eng- 

 land, appeared later. 



A mistake on our part in the reading of a somewhat ambiguous 

 sentence in a letter led to the remark, at the close of the first of those 

 articles (p. 295), th,at the leaf-trap of Dioncea had been paralyzed on 

 one side in consequence of a dexterous puncture. What was commu- 

 nicated really related to Drosera. 



14 



