THE VEGETABLE KINGDOM. 481 



On the other hand, the botanist can succeed m demon- 

 strating vegetable irritabihty by experiment. For this pur- 

 pose it suffices to excite certain organs with tlie point of 

 a needle or a fine scalpel. So soon as we touch the stamens 

 of the barberry, the nettle, or the cactus, we see them 

 shrink quickly from the instrument. In the same way 

 the pistils of the Mimulus bring their blades together when 

 the least prick is made. 



Lastly, this mobility is again seen manifesting itself 

 spontaneously with extraordinary intensity in the poUinic 

 animalcules of certain plants, which are furnished for this 

 purpose with special organs or cilise, by means of which 

 they SAvam in every direction in the fluid which contains 

 them! (See fig. 215.) 



Some true animalcule-plants are formed like eels, and 

 move by the aid of two long filaments which they carry 

 on their heads. This is seen in the common Chara. Others 

 which flit about in tlie cells of mosses, are exactly like the 

 tadpoles of frogs. 



And yet these creatures, the locomotive organs of which 

 we can see so plainly, and which the microscopist beholds 

 capering as nimbly as our mountebanks in their dangerous 

 leaps, are obstinately considered by certain botanists, for 

 the sake of mere theory, as being insensible and incapable 

 of moving. Do some learned men only possess eyes in 

 order not to see with them? 



