12 
New Phase of Plant-Life. 
[January, 
there is a class of plants which digest and afterwards absorb 
animal matter, namely all the Droseracese, Pinguicula, and, 
as discovered by Dr. Hooker, Nepenthes, and to this class 
other species will almost certainly soon be added. There is 
a second class of plants which, as we have just seen, cannot 
digest but absorb the products of the decay of the animals 
which they capture, namely, TJtricularia and its close 
allies ; and from the excellent observations of Dr. Melli- 
champ and Dr. Canby there can scarcely be a doubt that 
Sarracenia and Darlingtonia may be added to this class, 
though the fadt can hardly be considered as fully proved. 
There is a third class of plants which feed, as is now 
generally admitted, upon the products of the decay of 
vegetable matter, such as the bird’s-nest orchis ( Neottia ). 
Lastly there is the well-known fourth class of parasites 
(such as the mistletoe), which are nourished by the juices 
of living plants. Most, however, of the plants belonging to 
these four classes obtain part of their carbon, like ordinary 
species, from the atmosphere.” 
A writer unknown, criticising Mr. Darwin’s work in a 
daily paper, winds up an otherwise not unfair notice with 
the following strange comments : — 
“ Mr. Darwin forbears to connect his discoveries in this 
direction with his general theory, and we have no wish to 
challenge his adherents on the subjedt. But the existence 
of these insedt-eating plants does seem to us to militate 
against the theory of infinitesimal changes, each perpetuated 
by its beneficial acftion on the life of the species. For it is 
only when the tentacles and filaments and valves which 
render seizure possible have become so far complete as to 
capture at least a few inserts, and when the powers of 
digestion have been acquired, that the plant can benefit by 
these exceptional developments. And by what influences 
were the successive changes in this direftion sustained and 
increased, while of no use, till they reached the point of 
high elaboration at which they become useful, except by 
that very intellectual providence and controlling purpose 
which it is the paramount objedt of Darwinism to 
exclude ? ” 
Now by what exadt stages the Dioncea and the Drosera 
have reached their present stage of development it would 
be utterly premature to pronounce. But we see, in the 
case of the Drosera , that the adaptation is imperfedt- — a 
feature intelligible if it has been attained by a process of 
evolution, but scarcely conceivable on the hypothesis of 
special creation. Whoever reads Mr. Darwin’s work will 
