332 DARWINIAN A. 



of a memoir communicated to the Linnaean Society in 

 1865, and published in the ninth volume of its Jour- 

 nal. There was an extra impression, but, beyond the 

 circle of naturalists, it can hardly have been much 

 known at first-hand. Even now, when it is made a 

 part of the general Darwinian literature, it is unlikely 

 to be as widely read as the companion volume which 

 we have been reviewing ; although it is really a more 

 readable book, and well worthy of far more extended 

 notice at our hands than it can now receive. The rea- 

 son is obvious. It seems as natural that plants should 

 climb as it does unnatural that any should take animal 

 food. Most people, knowing that some plants " twine 

 with the sun," and others " against the sun," have an 

 idea that the sun in some way causes the twining ; in- 

 deed, the notion is still fixed in the popular mind that 

 the same species twines in opposite directions north 

 and south of the equator. 



Readers of this fascinating treatise will learn, first 

 of all, that the sun has no influence over such move- 

 ments directly, and that its indirect influence is com- 

 monly adverse or disturbing, except the heat, which 

 quickens vegetable as it does animal life. Also, that 

 climbing is accomplished by powers and actions as un- 

 like those generally predicated of the vegetable king- 

 dom as any which have been brought to view in the 

 preceding volume. Climbing plants " feel " as well as 

 " grow and live ; " and they also manifest an automa- 

 tism which is perhaps more wonderful than a response 

 by visible movement to an external irritation. Nor 

 do plants grow up their supports, as is unthinkingly 

 supposed ; for, although only growing or newly-grown 



