Darwiniana; Essays and Reviews Pertaining to Darwinism Part 14

To make such observations is as easy as it is interesting. Throughout the summer one has only to transfer plants of Drosera from the bogs into pots or pans filled with wet moss--if need be, allowing them to become established in the somewhat changed conditions, or even to put out fresh leaves--and to watch their action or expedite it by placing small flies upon the disk of the leaves. The more common round-leaved sundew acts as well as the other by its bristles, and the leaf itself is sometimes almost equally prehensile, although in a different way, infolding the whole border instead of the summit only. Very curious, and even somewhat painful, is the sight when a fly, alighting upon the central dew-tipped bristles, is held as fast as by a spider's web; while the efforts to escape not only entangle the insect more hopelessly as they exhaust its strength, but call into action the surrounding bristles, which, one by one, add to the number of the bonds, each by itself apparently feeble, but in their combination so effectual that the fly may be likened to the sleeping Gulliver made fast in the tiny but mult.i.tudinous toils of the Liliputians. Anybody who can believe that such an apparatus was not intended to capture flies might say the same of a spider's web.

Is the intention here to be thought any the less real because there are other species of Drosera which are not so perfectly adapted for fly-catching, owing to the form of their leaves and the partial or total want of cooperation of their scattered bristles? One such species, D.

filiformis, the thread-leaved sundew, is not uncommon in this country, both north and south of the district that Dionaea locally inhabits. Its leaves are long and thread-shaped, beset throughout with glutinous gland-tipped bristles, but wholly dest.i.tute of a blade. Flies, even large ones, and even moths and b.u.t.terflies, as Mrs. Treat and Mr. Canby affirm (in the American Naturalist), get stuck fast to these bristles, whence they seldom escape.

Accidental as such captures are, even these thread-shaped leaves respond more or less to the contact, somewhat in the manner of their brethren. In Mr. Canby's recent and simple experiment, made at Mr. Darwin's suggestion, when a small fly alights upon a leaf a little below its slender apex, or when a bit of crushed fly is there affixed, within a few hours the tip of the leaf bends at the point of contact, and curls over or around the body in question; and Mrs. Treat even found that when living flies were pinned at half an inch in distance from the leaves, these in forty minutes had bent their tips perceptibly toward the flies, and in less than two hours reached them! If this be confirmed--and such a statement needs ample confirmation--then it may be suspected that these slender leaves not only incurve after prolonged contact, just as do the leaf-stalks of many climbers, but also make free and independent circular sweeps, in the manner of twining stems and of many tendrils.

Correlated movements like these indicate purpose. When performed by climbing plants, the object and the advantage are obvious. That the apparatus and the actions of Dionaea and Drosera are purposeless and without advantage to the plants themselves, many have been believed in former days, when it was likewise conceived that abortive and functionless organs were specially created "for the sake of symmetry" and to display a plan; but this is not according to the genius of modern science.

In the cases of insecticide next to be considered, such evidence of intent is wanting, but other and circ.u.mstantial evidence may be had, sufficient to warrant convictions. Sarracenias have hollow leaves in the form of pitchers or trumpet-shaped tubes, containing water, in which flies and other insects are habitually drowned. They are all natives of the eastern side of North America, growing in bogs or low ground, so that they cannot be supposed to need the water as such. Indeed, they secrete a part if not all of it. The commonest species, and the only one at the North, which ranges from Newfoundland to Florida, has a broad-mouthed pitcher with an upright lid, into which rain must needs fall more or less. The yellow Sarracenia, with long tubular leaves, called "trumpets in the Southern States, has an arching or partly upright lid, raised well above the orifice, so that some water may rain in; but a portion is certainly secreted there, and may be seen bedewing the sides and collected at the bottom before the mouth opens.

In other species, the orifice is so completely overarched as essentially to prevent the access of water from without. In these tubes, mainly in the water, flies and other insects acc.u.mulate, perish, and decompose. Flies thrown into the open-mouthed tube of the yellow Sarracenia, even when free from water, are unable to get out--one hardly sees why, except that they cannot fly directly upward; and microscopic chevaux-de-frise of fine, sharp-pointed bristles which line most of the interior, pointing strictly downward, may be a more effectual obstacle to crawling up the sides than one would think possible. On the inside of the lid or hood of the purple Northern species, the bristles are much stronger; but an insect might escape by the front without encountering these. In this species, the pitchers, however, are so well supplied with water that the insects which somehow are most abundantly attracted thither are effectually drowned, and the contents all summer long are in the condition of a rich liquid manure.

That the tubes or pitchers of the Southern species are equally attractive and fatal to flies is well known. Indeed, they are said to be taken into houses and used as fly-traps. There is no perceptible odor to draw insects, except what arises from the decomposition of macerated victims; nor is any kind of lure to be detected at the mouth of the pitcher of the common purple-flowered species. Some incredulity was therefore natural when it was stated by a Carolinian correspondent (Mr. B.F. Grady) that in the long-leaved, yellow-flowered species the lid just above the mouth of the tubular pitcher habitually secretes drops of a sweet and viscid liquid, which attracts flies and apparently intoxicates them, since those that sip it soon become unsteady in gait and mostly fall irretrievably into the well beneath. But upon cultivating plants of this species, obtained for the purpose, the existence of this lure was abundantly verified; and, although we cannot vouch for its inebriating quality, we can no longer regard it as unlikely.

No sooner was it thus ascertained that at least one species of Sarracenia allures flies to their ruin than it began to appear that--just as in the case of Drosera--most of this was a mere revival of obsolete knowledge. The "insect-destroying process" was known and well described sixty years ago, the part played by the sweet exudation indicated, and even the intoxication perhaps hinted at, although evidently little thought of in those ante-temperance days. Dr. James Macbride, of South Carolina--the early a.s.sociate of Elliott in his "Botany of South Carolina and Georgia," and to whose death, at the age of thirty-three, cutting short a life of remarkable promise, the latter touchingly alludes in the preface to his second volume--sent to Sir James Edward Smith an account of his observations upon this subject, made in 1810 and the following years. This was read to the Linnaean Society in 1815, and published in the twelfth volume of its "Transactions." From this forgotten paper (to which attention has lately been recalled) we cull the following extracts, premising that the observations mostly relate to a third species, Sarracenia adunca, alias variolaris, which is said to be the most efficient fly-catcher of the kind:

"If, in the months of May, June, or July, when the leaves of those plants perform their extraordinary functions in the greatest perfection, some of them be removed to a house and fixed in an erect position, it will soon be perceived that flies are attracted by them. These insects immediately approach the fauces of the leaves, and, leaning over their edges, appear to sip with eagerness something from their internal surfaces. In this position they linger; but at length, allured as it would seem by the pleasure of taste, they enter the tubes. The fly which has thus changed its situation will be seen to stand unsteadily; it totters for a few seconds, slips, and falls to the bottom of the tube, where it is either drowned or attempts in vain to ascend against the points of the hairs. The fly seldom takes wing in its fall and escapes. . . . in a house much infested with flies, this entrapment goes on so rapidly that a tube is filled in a few hours, and it becomes necessary to add water, the natural quant.i.ty being insufficient to drown the imprisoned insects. The leaves of S. adunca and rubra might well be employed as fly-catchers; indeed, I am credibly informed they are in some neighborhoods. The leaves of the S. flava [the species to which our foregoing remarks mainly relate], although they are very capacious, and often grow to the height of three feet or more, are never found to contain so many insects as those of the species above mentioned.

"The cause which attracts flies is evidently a sweet, viscid substance resembling honey, secreted by or exuding from the internal surface of the tube . . . From the margin, where it commences, it does not extend lower than one-fourth of an inch.

"The falling of the insect as soon as it enters the tube is wholly attributable to the downward or inverted position of the hairs of the internal surface of the leaf. At the bottom of a tube split open, the hairs are plainly discernible pointing downward; as the eye ranges upward, they gradually become shorter and attenuated, till at or just below the surface covered by the bait they are no longer perceptible to the naked eye nor to the most delicate touch. It is here that the fly cannot take a hold sufficiently strong to support itself, but falls. The in. ability of insects to crawl up against the points of the hairs I have often tested in the most satisfactory manner."

From the last paragraph it may be inferred that Dr. Macbride did not suspect any inebriating property in the nectar, and in a closing note there is a conjecture of an impalpable loose powder in S. flava, at the place where the fly stands so unsteadily, and from which it is supposed to slide.

We incline to take Mr. Grady's view of the case.

The complete oblivion into which this paper and the whole subject had fallen is the more remarkable when it is seen that both are briefly but explicitly referred to in Elliott's book, with which botanists are familiar.

It is not so wonderful that the far earlier allusion to these facts by the younger Bartram should have been overlooked or disregarded. With the genuine love of Nature and fondness for exploration, 'William Bartram did not inherit the simplicity of his father, the earliest native botanist of this country. Fine writing was his foible; and the preface to his well-known "Travels" (published at Philadelphia in 1791) is its full-blown ill.u.s.tration, sometimes perhaps deserving the epithet which he applies to the palms of Florida--that of pomposity. In this preface he declares that "all the Sarracenias are insect-catchers, and so is the Drosera rotundifolia. Whether the insects caught in their leaves, and which dissolve and mix with the fluid, serve for aliment or support to these kind of plants is doubtful," he thinks, but he should be credited with the suggestion. In one sentence he speaks of the quant.i.ties of insects which, "being invited down to sip the mellifluous exuvia from the interior surface of the tube, where they inevitably perish," being prevented from returning by the stiff hairs all pointing downward. This, if it refers to the sweet secretion, would place it below, and not, as it is, above the bristly surface, while the liquid below, charged with decomposing insects, is declared in an earlier sentence to be "cool and animating, limpid as the morning dew." Bartram was evidently writing from memory; and it is very doubtful if he ever distinctly recognized the sweet exudation which entices insects.

Why should these plants take to organic food more than others? If we cannot answer the question, we may make a probable step toward it. For plants that are not parasitic, these, especially the sundews, have much less than the ordinary amount of chlorophyll--that is, of the universal leaf-green upon which the formation of organic matter out of inorganic materials depends.

These take it instead of making it, to a certain extent.

What is the bearing of these remarkable adaptations and operations upon doctrines of evolution? There seems here to be a field on which the specific creationist, the evolutionist with design, and the necessary evolutionist, may fight out an interesting, if not decisive, "triangular duel."

XI

INSECTIVOROUS AND

CLIMBING PLANTS [XI-1]

(The Nation, January 6 and 13, 1876)

"Minerals grow; vegetables grow and live; animals grow, live, and feel;"

this is the well-worn, not to say out-worn, diagnosis of the three kingdoms by Linnaeus. It must be said of it that the agreement indicated in the first couplet is unreal, and that the distinction declared in the second is evanescent. Crystals do not grow at all in the sense that plants and animals grow. On the other hand, if a response to external impressions by special movements is evidence of feeling, vegetables share this endowment with animals; while, if conscious feeling is meant, this can be affirmed only of the higher animals. What appears to remain true is, that the difference is one of successive addition. That the increment in the organic world is of many steps; that in the long series no absolute lines separate, or have always separated, organisms which barely respond to impressions from those which more actively and variously respond, and even from those that consciously so respond--this, as we all know, is what the author of the works before us has undertaken to demonstrate. Without reference here either to that part of the series with which man is connected, and in some sense or other forms a part of, or to that lower limbo where the two organic kingdoms apparently merge--or whence, in evolutionary phrase, they have emerged--Mr. Darwin, in the present volumes, directs our attention to the behavior of the highest plants alone. He shows that some (and he might add that all) of them execute movements for their own advantage, and that some capture and digest living prey. When plants are seen to move and to devour, what faculties are left that are distinctively animal?

As to insectivorous or otherwise carnivorous plants, we have so recently here discussed this subject--before it attained to all this new popularity--that a brief account of Mr. Darwin's investigation may suffice.[XI-2] It is full of interest as a physiological research, and is a model of its kind, as well for the simplicity and directness of the means employed as for the clearness with which the results are brought out--results which any one may verify now that the way to them is pointed out, and which, surprising as they are, lose half their wonder in the ease and sureness with which they seem to have been reached.

Rather more than half the volume is devoted to one subject, the round-leaved sundew (Drosera rotundifolia), a rather common plant in the northern temperate zone. That flies stick fast to its leaves, being limed by the tenacious seeming dew-drops which stud its upper face and margins, had long been noticed in Europe and in this country. We have heard hunters and explorers in our Northern woods refer with satisfaction to the fate which in this way often befalls one of their plagues, the black fly of early summer. And it was known to some observant botanists in the last century, although forgotten or discredited in this, that an insect caught on the viscid glands it has happened to alight upon is soon fixed by many more--not merely in consequence of its struggles, but by the spontaneous incurvation of the stalks of surrounding and untouched glands; and even the body of the leaf had been observed to incurve or become cup-shaped so as partly to involve the captive insect.

Mr. Darwin's peculiar investigations not only confirm all this, but add greater wonders. They relate to the sensitiveness of these tentacles, as he prefers to call them, and the mode in which it is manifested; their power of absorption; their astonishing discernment of the presence of animal or other soluble azotized matter, even in quant.i.ties so minute as to rival the spectroscope--that most exquisite instrument of modern research--in delicacy; and, finally, they establish the fact of a true digestion, in all essential respects similar to that of the stomach of animals.

First as to sensitiveness and movement. Sensitiveness is manifested by movement or change of form in response to an external impression. The sensitiveness in the sundew is all in the gland which surmounts the tentacle. To incite movement or other action, it is necessary that the gland itself should be reached. Anything laid on the surface of the viscid drop, the spherule of clear, glairy liquid which it secretes, produces no effect unless it sinks through to the gland; or unless the substance is soluble and reaches it in solution, which, in the case of certain substances, has the same effect. But the glands themselves do not move, nor does any neighboring portion of the tentacle. The outer and longer tentacles bend inward (toward the centre of the leaf) promptly, when the gland is irritated or stimulated, sweeping through an arc of 1800 or less, or more--the quickness and the extent of the inflection depending, in equally vigorous leaves, upon the amount of irritation or stimulation, and also upon its kind. A tentacle with a particle of raw meat on its gland sometimes visibly begins to bend in ten seconds, becomes strongly incurved in five minutes, and its tip reaches the centre of the leaf in half an hour; but this is a case of extreme rapidity. A particle of cinder, chalk, or sand, will also incite the bending, if actually brought in contact with the gland, not merely resting on the drop; but the inflection is then much less p.r.o.nounced and more transient. Even a bit of thin human hair, only 1/8000 of an inch in length, weighing only the 1/78740 of a grain, and largely supported by the viscid secretion, suffices to induce movement; but, on the other hand, one or two momentary, although rude, touches with a hard object produce no effect, although a repeated touch or the slightest pressure, such as that of a gnat's foot, prolonged for a short time, causes bending. The seat of the movement is wholly or nearly confined to a portion of the lower part of the tentacle, above the base, where local irritation produces not the slightest effect. The movement takes place only in response to some impression made upon its own gland at the distant extremity, or upon other glands far more remote. For if one of these members suffers irritation the others sympathize with it. Very noteworthy is the correlation between the central tentacles, upon which an insect is most likely to alight, and these external and larger ones, which, in proportion to their distance from the centre, take the larger share in the movement.

The shorter central ones do not move at all when a bit of meat, or a crushed fly, or a particle of a salt of ammonia, or the like, is placed upon them; but they transmit their excitation across the leaf to the surrounding tentacles on all sides; and they, although absolutely untouched, as they successively receive the mysterious impulse, bend strongly inward, just as they do when their own glands are excited. Whenever a tentacle bends in obedience to an impulse from its own gland, the movement is always toward the centre of the leaf; and this also takes place, as we have seen, when an exciting object is lodged at the centre. But when the object is placed upon either half of the leaf, the impulse radiating thence causes all the surrounding untouched tentacles to bend with precision toward the point of excitement, even the central tentacles, which are motionless when themselves charged, now responding to the call. The inflection which follows mechanical irritation or the presence of any inorganic or insoluble body is transient; that which follows the application of organic matter lasts longer, more or less, according to its nature and the amount; but sooner or later the tentacles resume their former position, their glands glisten anew with fresh secretion, and they are ready to act again.

As to how the impulse is originated and propagated, and how the movements are made, comparatively simple as the structure is, we know as little as we do of the nature of nervous impulse and muscular motion. But two things Mr.

Darwin has wellnigh made out, both of them by means and observations so simple and direct as to command our confidence, although they are contrary to the prevalent teaching. First, the transmission is through the ordinary cellular tissue, and not through what are called the fibrous or vascular bundles. Second, the movement is a vital one, and is effected by contraction on the side toward which the bending takes place, rather than by turgescent tension of the opposite side. The tentacle is pulled over rather than pushed over. So far all accords with muscular action.

The operation of this fly-catching apparatus, in any case, is plain. If the insect alights upon the disk of the leaf, the viscid secretion holds it fast--at least, an ordinary fly is unable to escape--its struggles only increase the number of glands involved and the amount of excitement; this is telegraphed to the surrounding and successively longer tentacles, which bent over in succession, so that within ten to thirty hours, if the leaf is active and the fly large enough, every one of the glands (on the average, nearly two hundred in number) will be found applied to the body of the insect. If the insect is small, and the lodgment toward one side, only the neighboring tentacles may take part in the capture. If two or three of the strong marginal tentacles are first encountered, their prompt inflection carries the intruder to the centre, and presses it down upon the glands which thickly pave the floor; these notify all the surrounding tentacles of the capture, that they may share the spoil, and the fate of that victim is even as of the first. A bit of meat or a crushed insect is treated in the same way.

This language implies that the animal matter is in some way or other discerned by the tentacles, and is appropriated. Formerly there was only a presumption of this, on the general ground that such an organization could hardly be purposeless. Yet, while such expressions were natural, if not unavoidable, they generally were used by those familiar with the facts in a half-serious, half-metaphorical sense. Thanks to Mr. Darwin's investigations, they may now be used in simplicity and seriousness.

That the glands secrete the glairy liquid of the drop is evident, not only from its nature, but from its persistence through a whole day's exposure to a summer sun, as also from its renewal after it has been removed, dried up, or absorbed. That they absorb as well as secrete, and that the whole tentacle may be profoundly affected thereby, are proved by the different effects, in kind and degree, which follow the application of different substances. Drops of rain-water, like single momentary touches of a solid body, produce no effect, as indeed they could be of no advantage; but a little carbonate of ammonia in the water, or an infusion of meat, not only causes inflection, but promptly manifests its action upon the contents of the cells of which the tentacle is constructed. These cells are sufficiently transparent to be viewed under the microscope without dissection or other interference; and the change which takes place in the fluid contents of these cells, when the gland above has been acted upon, is often visible through a weak lens, or sometimes even by the naked eye, although higher powers are required to discern what actually takes place.

This change, which Mr. Darwin discovered, and turns to much account in his researches, he terms "aggregation of the protoplasm." When untouched and quiescent, the contents appear as an h.o.m.ogeneous purple fluid. When the gland is acted upon, minute purple particles appear, suspended in the now colorless or almost colorless fluid; and this change appears first in the cells next the gland, and then in those next beneath, traveling down the whole length of the tentacle. When the action is slight, this appearance does not last long; the particles of "aggregated protoplasm redissolved, the process of redissolution traveling upward from the base of the tentacle to the gland in a reverse direction to that of the aggregation. Whenever the action is more prolonged or intense, as when a bit of meat or crushed fly, or a fitting solution, is left upon the gland, the aggregation proceeds further, so that the whole protoplasm of each cell condenses into one or two ma.s.ses, or into a single ma.s.s which will often separate into two, which afterward reunite; indeed, they incessantly change their forms and positions, being never at rest, although their movements are rather slow.

In appearance and movements they are very like amoebae and the white corpuscles of the blood. Their motion, along with the streaming movement of rotation in the layer of white granular protoplasm that flows along the walls of the cell, under the high powers of the microscope "presents a wonderful scene of vital activity." This continues while the tentacle is inflected or the gland fed by animal matter, but vanishes by dissolution when the work is over and the tentacle straightens. That absorption takes place, and matter is conveyed from cell to cell, is well made out, especially by the experiments with carbonate of ammonia. Nevertheless, this aggregation is not dependent upon absorption, for it equally occurs from mechanical irritation of the gland, and always accompanies inflection, however caused, though it may take place without it. This is also apparent from the astonishingly minute quant.i.ty of certain substances which suffices to produce sensible inflection and aggregation--such, for instance, as the 1/20000000 or even the 1/30000000 of a grain of phosphate or nitrate of ammonia!

By varied experiments it was found that the nitrate of ammonia was more powerful than the carbonate, and the phosphate more powerful than the nitrate, this result being intelligible from the difference in the amount of nitrogen in the first two salts, and from the presence of phosphorus in the third. There is nothing surprising in the absorption of such extremely dilute solutions by a gland. As our author remarks: "All physiologists admit that the roots of plants absorb the salts of ammonia brought to them by the rain; and fourteen gallons of rain-water contain a grain of ammonia; therefore, only a little more than twice as much as in the weakest solution employed by me. The fact which appears truly wonderful is that the 1/20000000 of a grain of the phosphate of ammonia, including less than 1/30000000 of efficient matter (if the water of crystallization is deducted), when absorbed by a gland, should induce some change in it which leads to a motor impulse being transmitted down the whole length of the tentacle, causing its basal part to bend, often through an angle of 180 degrees." But odoriferous particles which act upon the nerves of animals must be infinitely smaller, and by these a dog a quarter of a mile to the leeward of a deer perceives his presence by some change in the olfactory nerves transmitted through them to the brain.

When Mr. Darwin obtained these results, fourteen years ago, he could claim for Drosera a power and delicacy in the detection of minute quant.i.ties of a substance far beyond the resources of the most skillful chemist; but in a foot-note he admits that "now the spectroscope has altogether beaten Drosera; for, according to Bunsen and Kirchhoff, probably less than the 1/200000000 of a grain of sodium can be thus detected."

Finally, that this highly-sensitive and active living organism absorbs, will not be doubted when it is proved to digest, that is, to dissolve otherwise insoluble animal matter by the aid of special secretions. That it does this is now past doubting. In the first place, when the glands are excited they pour forth an increased amount of the ropy secretion. This occurs directly when a bit of meat is laid upon the central glands; and the influence which they transmit to the long-stalked marginal glands causes them, while incurving their tentacles, to secrete more copiously long before they have themselves touched anything. The primary fluid, secreted without excitation, does not of itself digest. But the secretion under excitement changes in Nature and becomes acid. So, according to Schiff, mechanical irritation excites the glands of the stomach to secrete an acid.

In both this acid appears to be necessary to, but of itself insufficient for, digestion. The requisite solvent, a kind of ferment called pepsin, which acts only in the presence of the acid, is poured forth by the glands of the stomach only after they have absorbed certain soluble nutritive substances of the food; then this pepsin promptly dissolves muscle, fibrine, coagulated alb.u.men, cartilage, and the like. Similarly it appears that Drosera-glands, after irritation by particles of gla.s.s, did not act upon little cubes of alb.u.men. But when moistened with saliva, or replaced by bits of roast-meat or gelatine, or even cartilage, which supply some soluble peptone-matter to initiate the process, these substances are promptly acted upon, and dissolved or digested; whence it is inferred that the a.n.a.logy with the stomach holds good throughout, and that a ferment similar to pepsin is poured out under the stimulus of some soluble animal matter. But the direct evidence of this is furnished only by the related carnivorous plant, Dionaea, from which the secretions, poured out when digestion is about to begin, may be collected in quant.i.ty sufficient for chemical examination. In short, the experiments show "that there is a remarkable accordance in the power of digestion between the gastric juice of animals, with its pepsin and hydrochloric acid, and the secretion of Drosera, with its ferment and acid belonging to the acetic series. We can, therefore, hardly doubt that the ferment in both cases is closely similar, if not identically the same. That a plant and an animal should pour forth the same, or nearly the same, complex secretion, adapted for the same purpose of digestion, is a new and wonderful fact in physiology."

There are one or two other species of sundew--one of them almost as common in Europe and North America as the ordinary round-leaved species--which act in the same way, except that, having their leaves longer in proportion to their breadth, their sides never curl inward, but they are much disposed to aid the action of their tentacles by incurving the tip of the leaf, as if to grasp the morsel. There are many others, with variously less efficient and less advantageously arranged insectivorous apparatus, which, in the language of the new science, may be either on the way to acquire something better, or of losing what they may have had, while now adapting themselves to a proper vegetable life. There is one member of the family (Drosophyllum Lusitanic.u.m), an almost shrubby plant, which grows on dry and sunny hills in Portugal and Morocco--which the villagers call "the flycatcher," and hang up in their cottages for the purpose--the glandular tentacles of which have wholly lost their powers of movement, if they ever had any, but which still secrete, digest, and absorb, being roused to great activity by the contact of any animal matter. A friend of ours once remarked that it was fearful to contemplate the amount of soul that could be called forth in a dog by the sight of a piece of meat. Equally wonderful is the avidity for animal food manifested by these vegetable tentacles, that can "only stand and wait" for it.

Only a brief chapter is devoted to Dionaea of North Carolina, the Venus's fly-trap, albeit, "from the rapidity and force of its movements, one of the most wonderful in the world." It is of the same family as the sundew; but the action is transferred from tentacles on the leaf to the body of the leaf itself, which is transformed into a spring-trap, closing with a sudden movement over the alighted insect. No secretion is provided beforehand either for allurement or detention; but after the captive is secured, microscopic glands within the surface of the leaf pour out an abundant gastric juice to digest it. Mrs. Gla.s.s's cla.s.sical directions in the cook-book, "first catch your hare," are implicitly followed.

Avoiding here all repet.i.tion or recapitulation of our former narrative, suffice it now to mention two interesting recent additions to our knowledge, for which we are indebted to Mr. Darwin. One is a research, the other an inspiration. It is mainly his investigations which have shown that the glairy liquid, which is poured upon and macerates the captured insect, accomplishes a true digestion; that, like the gastric juice of animals, it contains both a free acid and pepsin or its a.n.a.logue, these two together dissolving alb.u.men, meat, and the like. The other point relates to the significance of a peculiarity in the process of capture. When the trap suddenly incloses an insect which has betrayed its presence by touching one of the internal sensitive bristles, the closure is at first incomplete. For the sides approach in an arching way, surrounding a considerable cavity, and the marginal spine-like bristles merely intercross their tips, leaving intervening s.p.a.ces through which one may look into the cavity beneath. A good idea may be had of it by bringing the two palms near together to represent the sides of the trap, and loosely interlocking the fingers to represent the marginal bristles or bars. After remaining some time in this position the closure is made complete by the margins coming into full contact, and the sides finally flattening down so as to press firmly upon the insect within; the secretion excited by contact is now poured out, and digestion begins. Why these two stages? Why should time be lost by this preliminary and incomplete closing? The query probably was never distinctly raised before, no one noticing anything here that needed explanation.

Darwinian teleology, however, raises questions like this, and Mr. Darwin not only propounded the riddle but solved it. The object of the partial closing is to permit small insects to escape through the meshes, detaining only those plump enough to be worth the trouble of digesting. For naturally only one insect is caught at a time, and digestion is a slow business with Dionaeas, as with anacondas, requiring ordinarily a fortnight. It is not worth while to undertake it with a gnat when larger game may be had. To test this happy conjecture, Mr. Canby was asked, on visiting the Dionaeas in their native habitat, to collect early in the season a good series of leaves in the act of digesting naturally-caught insects. Upon opening them it was found that ten out of fourteen were engaged upon relatively large prey, and of the remaining four three had insects as large as ants, and one a rather small fly.

"There be land-rats and water-rats" in this carnivorous sun-dew family.

Aldrovanda, of the warmer parts of Europe and of India, is an aquatic plant, with bladdery leaves, which were supposed to be useful in rendering the herbage buoyant in water. But it has recently been found that the bladder is composed of two lobes, like the trap of its relative Dionaea, or the valves of a mussel-sh.e.l.l; that these open when the plant is in an active state, are provided with some sensitive bristles within, and when these are touched close with a quick movement. These water-traps are manifestly adapted for catching living creatures; and the few incomplete investigations that have already been made render it highly probably that they appropriate their prey for nourishment; whether by digestion or by mere absorption of decomposing animal matter, is uncertain. It is certainly most remarkable that this family of plants, wherever met with, and under the most diverse conditions and modes of life, should always in some way or other be predaceous and carnivorous.

If it be not only surprising but somewhat confounding to our cla.s.sifications that a whole group of plants should subsist partly by digesting animal matter and partly in the normal way of decomposing carbonic acid and producing the basis of animal matter, we have, as Mr.

Darwin remarks, a counterpart anomaly in the animal kingdom. While some plants have stomachs, some animals have roots. "The rhizocephalous crustaceans do not feed like other animals by their mouths, for they are dest.i.tute of an alimentary ca.n.a.l, but they live by absorbing through root-like processes the juices of the animals on which they are parasitic."

To a naturalist of our day, imbued with those ideas of the solidarity of organic Nature which such facts as those we have been considering suggest, the greatest anomaly of all would be that they are really anomalous or unique. Reasonably supposing, therefore, that the sundew did not stand alone, Mr. Darwin turned his attention to other groups of plants; and, first, to the bladderworts, which have no near kinship with the sundews, but, like the aquatic representative of that family, are provided with bladdery sacs, under water. In the common species of Utricularia or bladderwort, these little sacs, hanging from submerged leaves or branches, have their orifice closed by a lid which opens inwardly--a veritable trapdoor. It had been noticed in England and France that they contained minute crustacean animals. Early in the summer of 1874, Mr. Darwin ascertained the mechanism for their capture and the great success with which it is used. But before his account was written out, Prof. Cohn published an excellent paper on the subject in Germany; and Mrs. Treat, of Vineland, New Jersey, a still earlier one in this country--in the New York Tribune in the autumn of 1874. Of the latter, Mr. Darwin remarks that she "has been more successful than any other observer in witnessing the actual entrance of these minute creatures." They never come out, but soon perish in their prison, which receives a continued succession of victims, but little, if any, fresh air to the contained water. The action of the trap is purely mechanical, without evident irritability in the opening or shutting.

There is no evidence nor much likelihood of proper digestion; indeed, Mr.

Darwin found evidence to the contrary. But the more or less decomposed and dissolved animal matter is doubtless absorbed into the plant; for the whole interior of the sac is lined with peculiar, elongated and four-armed very thin-walled processes, which contain active protoplasm, and which were proved by experiment to "have the power of absorbing matter from weak solutions of certain salts of ammonia and urea, and from a putrid infusion of raw meat."

Although the bladderworts "prey on garbage," their terrestrial relatives "live cleanly," as n.o.bler plants should do, and have a good and true digestion. Pinguicula, or b.u.t.terwort, is the representative of this family upon land. It gets both its Latin and its English name from the fatty or greasy appearance of the upper face of its broad leaves; and this appearance is due to a dense coat or pile of short-stalked glands, which secrete a colorless and extremely viscid liquid. By this small flies, or whatever may alight or fall upon the leaf, are held fast. These waifs might be useless or even injurious to the plant. Probably Mr. Darwin was the first to ask whether they might be of advantage. He certainly was the first to show that they probably are so. The evidence from experiment, shortly summed up, is, that insects alive or dead, and also other nitrogenous bodies, excite these glands to increased secretion; the secretion then becomes acid, and acquires the power of dissolving solid animal substances--that is, the power of digestion in the manner of Drosera and Dionaea. And the stalks of their glands under the microscope give the same ocular evidence of absorption. The leaves of the b.u.t.terwort are apt to have their margins folded inward, like a rim or hem. Taking young and vigorous leaves to which hardly anything had yet adhered, and of which the margins were still flat, Mr. Darwin set within one margin a row of small flies.

Fifteen hours afterward this edge was neatly turned inward, partly covering the row of flies, and the surrounding glands were secreting copiously. The other edge remained flat and unaltered. Then he stuck a fly to the middle of the leaf just below its tip, and soon both margins infolded, so as to clasp the object. Many other and varied experiments yielded similar results. Even pollen, which would not rarely be lodged upon these leaves, as it falls from surrounding wind-fertilized plants, also small seeds, excited the same action, and showed signs of being acted upon. "We may therefore conclude," with Mr. Darwin, "that Pinguicula vulgaris, with its small roots, is not only supported to a large extent by the extraordinary number of insects which it habitually captures, but likewise draws some nourishment from the pollen, leaves, and seeds, of other plants which often adhere to its leaves. It is, therefore, partly a vegetable as well as an animal feeder."

What is now to be thought of the ordinary glandular hairs which render the surface of many and the most various plants extremely viscid? Their number is legion. The Chinese primrose of common garden and house culture is no extraordinary instance; but Mr. Francis Darwin, counting those on a small s.p.a.ce measured by the micrometer, estimated them at 65,371 to the square inch of foliage, taking in both surfaces of the leaf, or two or three millions on a moderate-sized specimen of this small herb. Glands of this sort were loosely regarded as organs for excretion, without much consideration of the question whether, in vegetable life, there could be any need to excrete, or any advantage gained by throwing off such products; and, while the popular name of catch-fly, given to several common species of Silene, indicates long familiarity with the fact, probably no one ever imagined that the swarms of small insects which perish upon these sticky surfaces were ever turned to account by the plant. In many such cases, no doubt they perish as uselessly as when attracted into the flame of a candle. In the tobacco-plant, for instance, Mr. Darwin could find no evidence that the glandular hairs absorb animal matter. But Darwinian philosophy expects all gradations between casualty and complete adaptation.

It is most probable that any thin-walled vegetable structure which secretes may also be capable of absorbing under favorable conditions. The myriads of exquisitely-constructed glands of the Chinese primrose are not likely to be functionless. Mr. Darwin ascertained by direct experiment that they promptly absorb carbonate of ammonia, both in watery solution and in vapor.