[page] 409

Mr. Charles Darwin has added to the long list of his splendid scientific works, one which will perhaps appeal more strongly to the popular mind -that is, the not specially scientific mind than any of the others, "The Movements and Habits of Climbing Plants" (Murray). Opportunities for performing the experiments and testing the conclusions in this work are within the reach of most people who are likely to take any interest at all in the subject, and the smallest garden offers some illustrations of the beautiful habits of these plants. He divides the climbers into four orders, based on their manner of climbing: Climbing plants, in which the stem is the climbing organ; leaf climbers, in which some part of the leaf performs this office; tendril bearers, which throw out filaments; and hook and root climbers. In the great majority of plants the climbing power is derived from a tendency to turn round the object presented, and the origin of this has been for long a subject of close inquiry. The fact that the climbers belong to such a great variety of orders and genera suggests that; the twisting tendency is a universal character in some degree, or depends upon some common principle in vegetable physiology, or as Mr. Darwin says, "the capacity of revolving, on which most climbers depend, is inherent, though undeveloped, in almost every plant in the vegetable kingdom." With characteristic conscientiousness as a worker, Mr. Darwin presents here all that is known on the subject, and in this second edition he has embodied the acts and conclusions that have been gathering for the last ten years.