COMPARED WITH THOSE OP ANIMALS. 73 



CHAPTEK IV. 



ON THE CONTRACTILITY OF THE TISSUES. 



Life in the higher order of animals consists in the 

 exercise of four grand functions, viz., nutrition and repro- 

 duction, which they possess in common with plants, and 

 which constitute their vital or vegetative functions; loco- 

 motility and sensibility which are their special and dis- 

 tinctive appendage, and which form their animal functions, 

 properly so called, because it is these which constitute 

 their special character of animality. 



Now the plant is a beautifully simplified and highly in- 

 structive representation of the laws of growth and repro- 

 duction in the animal. 



There is no nervo muscular apparatus to give motion to 

 the organism of plants. Their movements are plainly at- 

 tributable, in the great majority of cases, to agencies purely 

 mechanical. Their branches, leaves, and other organs, are 

 moved by the wind, not by nerves and muscles. Some 

 species, however, exhibit movements, arising from other 

 causes as, for example, — 



The Dionaea muscipula, or Venus's Fly-catcher. This 

 remarkable plant grows in great abundance in the sandy 

 swamps in the neighborhood of the Cape Fear River, 

 especially from Wilmington to Fayett«ville, North Caro- 

 lina ; but it has not yet been found in any other locality. 



The generic name of the plant, Dionoea, is a derivative 

 from Dione, one of the names of Venus. The elegance 

 and delicacy of its snow-white corolla are alluded to in the 

 7 



