o 
New Phase of Plant- Life. 
[January, 
the sensitive plant were known, and could not be explained 
away. But it is remarkable with what ease a fadt can be 
shelved if unconnected, ill-understood, or not in harmony 
with received opinions. Had the public been informed half 
a century ago that plants exist decidedly carnivorous — 
capable of catching , and killing insedts, and of digesting 
their remains — scarcely any eminence on the part of the 
narrator would have saved his statement from being de- 
nounced as a fable. Yet in the work which lies before us 
there is the fullest proof that such is the case. Plants are 
found in many parts of the globe, our own country included, 
which depend for subsistence upon the insedts which they 
catch. They are endowed with a sensibility probably more 
acute than that possessed by any part of the human body, 
and even discriminate between nutritive and innutritious 
substances. 
It is very interesting that these revelations should be laid 
before the world by Mr. Darwin. Many authorities — from 
MM. Quatrefages, Milne-Edwards, and the late Agassiz, 
down to the Editor of the “ Family Herald ” — affedt to treat 
our great naturalist as an amateur speculator who has amused 
himself by commenting upon the information colledted by 
others. His work on “ Insedtivorous Plants ” proclaims him 
— as has long been known to all candid and competent judges 
—a careful, patient observer and experimentalist, who, had 
his attention in early life been diredted to physics or to 
chemistry, might have gathered in those fields of research 
laurels not less splendid than those he has won in the regions 
of organic science. 
At the same time it must not be supposed that Mr. Darwin 
is the first and sole observer of every fadt detailed in his 
work. That certain plants catch insedts has been long 
known and commented upon ; but Darwin has observed and 
described, more fully and clearly than any previous author, 
the mechanism for capture, the circumstances under which 
it is brought into play, and, above all, has established the 
capital fadt of the true digestion of the prey. Henceforth 
the existence and the attributes of carnivorous plants are 
points recognised in botanical science, and must be taken 
into account by all speculators on the life of plants and on 
their relations to animals. With characteristic modesty 
Mr. Darwin sums up his researches by saying — “ We see 
how little has been made out in comparison with what 
remains unexplained and unknown.” 
The sun-dew ( Drosera rotandifolia) is a plant not uncom- 
mon on heaths, and, though curious, is not remarkable either 
