io8 
NATURE STUDY. 
draw nourishment from other plants are degraded roots. 
In hemiparasites some divisions of the root remain normal 
while others are degraded into haustoria. In bastard toad¬ 
flax (Comandra) the roots produce globular haustoria 
which emit a process that penetrates the tissues of the 
host. It seems that degradation affects the vegetative 
much more quickly than the reproductive organs of plants; 
a fact of which the orchid family perhaps offers the best 
illustration. The coral-roots constitute a case in point. 
The artificial divisions of the organotopic plants into the 
five groups, viz., epiphytes, parasites, saprophytes, sym- 
biots and insectivorous plants, is a matter of convenience, 
and does not hold good except in extreme cases. There 
is an overlapping and an underlying and an inter-de¬ 
pendence of the several groups which is no less intricate 
than the root systems of the plants in a forest. So it must 
be borne in mind that the same plant may be a member of 
two or more of these groups; that between the saprophytes 
and symbiots the relation is extremely close ; and that a 
great many forest plants are to some extent organotopic or 
dependent plants. 
There remain to be considered the insectivorous plants, 
and also a specially interesting hemisaprophyte, 
Queer Ways of Walking. IV. 
BY EDWARD J. BURNHAM. 
Aversion to snakes is in some degree instinctive, but to 
a much greater extent is due to prejudice and ignorance of 
the creatures and their ways. When we come to appre¬ 
ciate their usefulness in the destruction of vermin, we shall 
leave the harmless ones to themselves, and when we un¬ 
derstand how restricted they are in their range of capaci¬ 
ties and to what dangers they are constantly exposed, we 
may even come to have a sort of pity for them. 
