MIMULUS SMITHII. 
61 
liberate the prisoner. This might possibly be the case, if it were perfectly quiet, 
but the least irritation keeps it fast closed. Ellis says the lobes never open again, 
so long as the animal continues therein ; that is, so long as it remains a perfect 
insect, or, in other words, until it becomes a skeleton. However correct this idea 
may be in some instances, it does not appear to hold good in all ; for some plants of 
the kind in our possession begin to open soon after the little insect’s death, and in 
the course of a short time the plant is expanded as it was before. A straw or a pin 
touching the middle of each lobe has the same effect as the legs of an insect, for the 
chief seat of irritability appears to be in three small hairs situated in the middle of 
each lobe ; but after these are withdrawn, the lobes will again open in the course of 
an hour. What can be the use of this extraordinary irritability is not at present 
discovered. Sir J. E. Smith believed that the dead insects were beneficial to 
vegetation, and this opinion so far influenced Mr. Knight, of the King’s-road, 
London, that he supplied the leaves of a plant with fine filaments of beef, and from 
that treatment it grew more luxuriant than some others in his possession, which 
