Another and still odder case of deceptiveness in plants is shown by a curious group of South African flowers, the Hydaoras and Stapelias. These queer and malodorous herbs have very large and rather handsome but fleshy blossoms, an inch or two across, dappled and spotted just like decaying meat. They live in the dry and almost desert region, where carrion-flies abound. Such flies lay their eggs and hatch out their grubs for the most part in half-eaten carcasses of antelopes or smaller animals killed and in part devoured by lions and other beasts of prey. So the flowers have taken to imitating dead meat. They are a lurid red in colour, with livid livery patches, and they have a strong and unpleasant smell of decaying animal matter. The flies, deceived by the scent, flock to them to lay their eggs, and in so doing carry out the real object of the plant by fertilizing the blossoms. But, of course, the whole thing is a vile sham; for when the maggots hatch out, the flower has died, and there is no food for them, so they perish of starvation. Dr. Blackmore, of Salisbury, once gave me some of these curious plants and flowers: I noticed that in the sunlight, where they smelt just like decomposing meat, they attracted dozens of bluebottle flies and other carrion insects. Protective resemblance also occurs among plants: for in the same dry South African region, where every green thing gets nibbled down in the rainless season, certain ice-plants and milk-weeds have acquired the trick of forming tubers or stems exactly like the pebbles among which they grow: so that when the leaves die down in the dry weather, the tuber is not distinguishable from the stones all round it. Such tubers are really reservoirs of living material destined to carry the life of the plant over the dead season: as soon as rain comes again, they put forth fresh green leaves at once, and grow on after their sleep as if nothing had happened. Even terrifying attitudes are not unknown in the vegetable world: for one of the uses of the movements in the Sensitive Plant is almost certainly to frighten animals. Browsing creatures that come near the bushes in their native woods see the leaves shrink back and curl up when touched, and are afraid to eat a tree that has so evidently a spirit in it. The Squirting Cucumber of the Mediterranean, again, alarms goats and cattle by discharging its ripe fruits explosively in their faces the moment the stem is touched. In this case the primary object is no doubt the dispersal of the seeds, which squirt out elastically as the fruit jumps off; but to frighten browsing enemies is a secondary advantage. There can be no question as to the reality of the plant's hostile intention, because the fruits also contain a pungent juice, which discharges itself at the same instant into the eyes of the assailant. As I have received a volley of this irritating liquid more than once in my own face (in the pursuit of science) I can testify