I do not hear of any person in those parts, who was so fortunate as to be near any pool or lake, and had recollection enough to attend to the motion of the waters; but it may be taken for granted, that during the tremors of the earth the fluids must be more affected than the solids: nay, the waters will apparently be agitated, when there is no motion of the earth perceptible, as was the case of our ponds and lake-waters in most parts of Britain on the 1st of November 1755. Whence this happens is difficult to say: whether the earth’s bosom undergoes at such times a kind of respiration, and alternately emits and withdraws a vapour thro’ its most porous parts sufficient to agitate the waters, yet not sufficient to shake the earth; or whether the earth, during the agitation of the waters, does rock and vacillate, tho’ not so as to be sensible to man; is what I shall leave to future inquiry. Earthquakes are very rare in Cornwall. This was but of short duration, and did no harm any-where, as far as I can learn; and it is to be hoped not the sooner forgotten for that reason; but rather remembered with all the impressions of gratitude suitable to an incident so alarming and dangerous, and yet so inoffensive. LXV. _Some Observations upon the Sleep of Plants; and an Account of that Faculty, which_ Linnæus _calls_ Vigiliæ Florum; _with an Enumeration of several Plants, which are subject to that Law. Communicated to_ Wm. Watson, _M. D. F.R.S. by Mr._ Richard Pultney _of_ Leicester. [Read Jan. 26, 1758.] ACosta and Prosper Alpinus, who both wrote near the conclusion of the XVIth century, are, I believe, the first, who recorded that nocturnal change in the leaves of plants, which has since been called _somnus_. It is an observation indeed as old as Pliny’s time, that the leaves of trefoil assume an erect situation[15] upon the coming of storms. The same is observable of our wood-sorrel; and Linnæus adds, of almost all plants with declinated stamina[16]. In the _Trifolium pratense album C. B._ or common white-flowered meadow trefoil, it is so obvious, that the common people in Sweden remark, and prognosticate the coming of tempests and rain from it.