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"The Power of Movement in Plants." By Charles Darwin, assisted by Francis Darwin. New York: D. Appleton and Company, with illustrations.

The author of the theory of evolution has never written a more interesting book than this, his latest work. In his introduction Mr. Darwin explains that the chief object of his book is to describe what he calls "the circumnutation of plants,: that is to say, the revolving movements of plants on their stems in irregular elliptical or oval lines turning gradually from one point of the compass through all the other points until they reach the point from whence they started. The diagrams, large numbers of which are given, illustrate these movements. Mr. Darwin divides his book into five chapters. In the first of these he describes the movements of sculling plants in the process of germinating beneath the soil and emerging from it, and follows it with general consideration on the movement and growth of seeding plants. The third chapter treats of the sensitiveness of the apex of the radical to contact and to other irritants. The other chapters are devoted to observations and remarks on the circumnutating movements are modified and by what means; the sleep movements of plants, how the movements are excited by light, the transmitted effects of light, and how they are excited by gravitation. The closing chapter describes the nature of these plant movements, gives the history of germinating seed and surmises the result of the observations on the movements of plants, and points out the resemblance between the movements of plants and animals.