plants, but, as above stated, we do not know why it is that plants respond to the stimulus of light or gravity; we only know that as a matter of fact they do so. It has often been vaguely asserted that plants are distinguished from animals by not having the power of movement. It should rather be said that plants acquire and display this power only when it is of some advantage to them; but that this is of comparatively rare occurrence, as they are affixed to the ground, and food is brought to them by the wind and rain. We see how high in the scale of organization the plant may rise when we look at one of the more perfect tendril-bearers. It first places its tendrils ready for action, as a polypus places its tentacula. If the tendril be displaced, it is acted on by the force of gravity and rights itself. It is acted on by the light, and bends toward or from it, or disregards it, whichever may be most advantageous. During several days, the tendril or internodes, or both, spontaneously revolve with a steady motion. The tendril strikes some object, and quickly curls round and firmly grasps it. In the course of some hours it contracts into a spire, dragging up the stem and forming an excellent spring. All movements now cease. By growth the tissues soon become wonderfully strong and durable. The tendril has done its work, and done it in an admirable manner. THE REIGN OF EVERGREENS --GRANT ALLEN The poor stripped and draggled garden is beginning to look very bare now (November) of all except a few straggling late-flowering shrubs and those trusty adopted friends that we have always with us, the shrubby, large-leaved southern evergreens. In northern climates, we must ruefully admit, there are hardly any true evergreens, save only the conifers, with their stiff and needle-like foliage, such as pines and spruce-firs; but we make up for it to some extent by borrowing from warmer or more southern lands the laurels, aucubas, laurustinuses and rhododendrons, that help to keep bright our English lawns and shrubberies throughout the long and weary winter months. Indeed, our only native flat-leaved shrubs that retain their full greenness from year’s end to year’s end are privet, box, and butcher’s broom, all three of them very doubtfully indigenous to these islands. It is the rule with English trees and shrubs to shed their foliage every autumn; and the fashion in which they do so shows very clearly how purposive and well adapted to their conditions in life is the deciduous habit. For the leaves do not merely tumble off anyhow, casually, before the first fierce autumnal winds; if they did so there would be loss of sap and of valuable foodstuffs to the whole plant of whose joint commonwealth they form the partially dependent members: their fall is duly provided for beforehand, and when at last it actually takes place, it takes place in an orderly and regular fashion, with the least possible injury to the interests of the entire tree.