a life of remarkable promise, the latter touchingly alludes in the preface to his second volume-sent to Sir James Edward Smith an account of his observations upon this subject, made in 1810 and the following years. This was read to the Linnæan Society in 1815, and published in the twelfth volume of its "Transactions." From this forgotten paper (to which attention has lately been recalled) we cull the following extracts, premising that the observations mostly relate to a third species, Sarracenia adunca, alias variolaris, which is said to be the most efficient fly catcher of the kind:

"If, in the months of May, June, or July, when the leaves of those plants perform their extraordinary functions in the greatest perfection, some of them be removed to a house and fixed in an erect position, it will soon be perceived that flies are attracted by them. These insects immediately approach the fauces of the leaves, and, leaning over their edges, appear to sip with eagerness something from their internal surfaces. In this position they linger; but at length, allured as it would seem by the pleasure of taste, they enter the tubes. The fly which has thus changed its situation will be seen to stand unsteadily; it totters for a few seconds, slips, and falls to the bottom of the tube, where it is either drowned or attempts in vain to ascend against the points of the hairs. The fly seldom takes wing in its fall and escapes. In a house much infested with flies, this entrapment goes on so rapidly that a tube is filled in a few hours, and it becomes necessary to add water, the natural quantity being insufficient to drown the imprisoned insects. The leaves of S. adunca and rubra [a fourth species] might well be employed as fly-catchers; indeed, I am credibly informed they are in some neighborhoods. The leaves of the S. flava [the species to which our foregoing remarks mainly relate], although they are very capacious, and often grow to the height of

three feet or more, are never found to contain so many insects as those of the species above mentioned.

"The cause which attracts flies is evidently a sweet, viscid substance resembling honey, secreted by or exuding from the internal surface of the tube. . . . From the margin, where it commences, it does not extend lower than one-fourth of an inch.

"The falling of the insect as soon as it enters the tube is wholly attributable to the downward or inverted position of the hairs of the internal surface of the leaf. At the bottom of a tube split open, the hairs are plainly discernible pointing downward; as the eye ranges upward, they gradually become shorter and attenuated, till at or just below the surface covered by the bait they are no longer perceptible to the naked eye nor to the most delicate touch. It is here that the fly cannot take a hold sufficiently strong to support itself, but falls. The inability of insects to crawl up against the points of the hairs I have often tested in the most satisfactory manner."

From the last paragraph it may be inferred that Dr. Macbride did not suspect any inebriating property in the nectar, and in a closing note there is a conjecture of an impalpable loose powder in S. flava, at the place where the fly stands so unsteadily, and from which it is supposed to slide. We incline to take Mr. Grady's view of the case.

The complete oblivion into which this paper and the whole subject had fallen is the more remarkable when it is seen that both are briefly but explicitly referred to in Elliott's book, with which botanists are familiar.

It is not so wonderful that the far earlier allusion to these facts by the younger Bartram should have been overlooked or disregarded. With the genuine love of Nature and fondness for exploration, William Bartram did not inherit the simplicity of his father,

the earliest native botanist of this country. Fine writing was his foible; and the preface to his wellknown "Travels " (published at Philadelphia in 1791) is its full-blown illustration, sometimes perhaps deserving the epithet which he applies to the palms of Florida-that of pomposity. In this preface he declares that "all the Sarracenias are insect-catchers, and so is the Drosera rotundifolia. Whether the insects caught in their leaves, and which dissolve and mix with the fluid, serve for aliment or support to these kind of plants is doubtful," he thinks, but he should be credited with the suggestion. In one sentence he speaks of the quantities of insects which, "being invited down to sip the mellifluous exuvia from the interior surface of the tube, where they inevitably perish," being prevented from returning by the stiff hairs all pointing downward. This, if it refers to the sweet secretion, would place it below, and not, as it is, above the bristly surface, while the liquid below, charged with decomposing insects, is declared in an earlier sentence to be "cool and animating, limpid as the morning dew." Bartram was evidently writing from memory; and it is very doubtful if he ever distinctly recognized the sweet exudation which entices insects.

Why should these plants take to organic food more than others? If we cannot answer the question, we may make a probable step toward it. For plants that are not parasitic, these, especially the sundews, have much less than the ordinary amount of chlorophyll— that is, of the universal leaf-green upon which the formation of organic matter out of inorganic materials

depends. These take it instead of making it, to a certain extent.

What is the bearing of these remarkable adaptations and operations upon doctrines of evolution? There seems here to be a field on which the specific creationist, the evolutionist with design, and the necessary evolutionist, may fight out an interesting, if not decisive, "triangular duel."

XI.

INSECTIVOROUS AND CLIMBING PLANTS.*

(THE NATION, January 6 and 13, 1876.)

"MINERALS grow; vegetables grow and live; animals grow, live, and feel;" this is the well-worn, not to say out-worn, diagnosis of the three kingdoms by Linnæus. It must be said of it that the agreement indicated in the first couplet is unreal, and that the distinction declared in the second is evanescent. Crystals do not grow at all in the sense that plants and animals grow. On the other hand, if a response to external impressions by special movements is evidence of feeling, vegetables share this endowment with animals; while, if conscious feeling is meant, this can be affirmed only of the higher animals. What appears to remain true is, that the difference is one of successive addition. That the increment in the organic world is of many steps; that in the long series no absolute

1 "Insectivorous Plants. By Charles Darwin, M. A., F. R. S." With Illustrations. London: John Murray. 1875. Pp. 462. New York: D. Appleton & Co.

"The Movements and Habits of Climbing Plants. By Charles Darwin, M. A., F. R. S., etc." Second Edition, revised, with Illustrations. London: John Murray. 1875. Pp. 208. New York: D. Appleton & Co.