96 AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 



During subsequent years, whenever I had leisure, I 

 pursued my experiments, and my book on ' Insectivo- 

 rous Plants' was published in July 1875 tnat * s 

 sixteen years after my first observations. The delay 

 in this case, as with all my other books, has been a 

 great advantage to me ; for a man after a long interval 

 can criticise his own work, almost as well as if it were 

 that of another person. The fact that a plant should 

 secrete, when properly excited, a fluid containing an 

 acid and ferment, closely analogous to the digestive 

 fluid of an animal, was certainly a remarkable discovery. 



During this autumn of 1876 I shall publish on the 

 ' Effects of Cross and Self-Fertilisation in the Vege- 

 table Kingdom.' This book will form a complement 

 to that on the ' Fertilisation of Orchids,' in which I 

 showed how perfect were the means for cross-fertili- 

 sation, and here I shall show how important are the 

 results. I was led to make, during eleven years, the 

 numerous experiments recorded in this volume, by a 

 mere accidental observation ; and indeed it required 

 the accident to be repeated before my attention was 

 thoroughly aroused to the remarkable fact that seed- 

 lings of self-fertilised parentage are inferior, even in 

 the first generation, in height and vigour to seedlings 

 of cross-fertilised parentage. I hope also to republish 

 a revised edition of my book on Orchids, and hereafter 

 my papers on dimorphic and trimorphic plants, together 

 with some additional observations on allied points 

 which I never have had time to arrange. My strength 

 will then probably be exhausted, and I shall be ready 

 to exclaim " Nunc dimittis." 



