Cuar. IL] INFLECTION INDIRECTLY CAUSED. 19 
mitted along the nerves to glands, modifying their power 
_ of secretion, independently of the state of the blood-vessels. 
The Inflection of the Exterior Tentacles from the Glands of the 
Disc being excited by Repeated Touches, or by Objects left in 
Contact with them. 
The central glands of a Jeaf were irritated with a small 
stiff camel-hair brush, and in 70 m. (minutes) several of the 
outer tentacles were inflected ; in 5 hrs. (hours) all the sub- 
marginal tentacles were inflected; next morning after an 
interval of about 22 hrs. they were fully re-expanded. In 
all the following cases the period is reckoned from the time 
of first irritation. Another leaf treated in the same manner 
had a few tentacles inflected in 20 m.; in 4 hrs. all the sub- 
marginal and some of the extreme marginal tentacles, as 
well as the edge of the leaf itself, were inflected; in 17 hrs. 
they had recovered their proper, expanded position. I then 
put a dead fly in the centre of the last-mentioned leaf, and 
next morning it was closely clasped; five days afterwards 
the leaf re-expanded, and the tentacles, with their glands 
surrounded by secretion, were ready to act again. 
Particles of meat, dead flies, bits of paper, wood, dried 
moss, sponge, cinders, glass, &c., were repeatedly placed on 
leaves, and these objects were well embraced in various 
periods from 1 hr. to as long as 24 hrs., and set free again, 
with the leaf fully re-expanded, in from one or two, to seven 
or even ten days, according to the nature of the object. On 
a leaf which had naturally caught two flies, and therefore 
had already closed and reopened either once, or more pro- 
bably twice, I put a fresh fly: in 7 hrs. it was moderately, 
and in 21 hrs. thoroughly well, clasped, with the edges of 
the leaf inflected. In two days and a half the leaf had nearly 
re-expanded; as the exciting object was an insect, this 
unusually short period of inflection was, no doubt, due to 
the leaf having recently been in action. Allowing this same 
leaf to rest for only a single day, I put on another fly, and 
it again closed, but now very slowly ; nevertheless, in less 
than two days it succeeded in thoroughly clasping the fly. 
When a small object is placed on the glands of the dise, on 
one side of a leaf, as near as possible to its circumference, the 
tentacles on this side are first affected, those on the opposite 
side much later, or, as often occurred, not at all. This was 
c 2 
