produced by some emanation of moisture from the bodies of the flies, or by any influence that might be exercised by the vibratory movements of their wings. No vain imaginings of such character will suffice for their explanation. The energy necessary to explain this phenomenon must come from within the leaves themselves. There was felt within them a desire for food, and it was this desire that led the leaves to bend away from the light and in the direction of the objects whose presence created in them that sensation. But how they were able, in the absence of any visible sense-organs, to determine the presence of these objects, is difficult to surmise. That they are sensitive to contact is generally conceded. And in them, no doubt, the sense of touch is keenly developed. Granting this to be the truth, then they see, as a blind man sees, by the sense of feeling. Currents of air, established by the vibration of the insect’s wings, impinging upon the epidermis of the leaves, affect the cells beneath, and a nervous influence is started, guided by some central agency, of which we know nothing, causing the leaves to bend in the proper direction. But why the leaves do not thus bend when impinged upon by currents other than those produced by insects, I am unable to say. Even as a blind man, though deaf, is able through the sense of touch to discriminate moving objects by the currents of air they excite, so it may be presumed that the leaves of Drosera are endowed with the same wonderful and intelligent capacity. Such a feeling once experienced would be apt to be known again, for it would become fixed in consciousness by a process of memory. That Drosera, whose habits are more animal-like than plant-like, must occupy a high position in the scale of vegetable life, there can be no reason to doubt from what has been said, and this assumption receives a most remarkable confirmation from the fact that there are evidences, not apparent however, of a sort of nervous system in its make-up, as shown by the discovery of Darwin that by pricking a certain point in a leaf one-half of its substance becomes paralyzed.