Car. XVII] MANNER OF CAPTURING PREY. 831 
have digested their prey; but this is not the case, and there 
are no glands fitted for secreting the proper fluid. Never- 
theless, in order to test their power of digestion, minute 
fragments of roast meat, three small cubes of albumen, and 
three of cartilage, were pushed through the orifice into the 
bladders of vigorous plants. They were left from one day 
to three days and a half within, and the bladders were then 
cut open: but none of the above substances exhibited the 
least signs of digestion or dissolution; the angles of the 
cubes being as sharp as ever. These observations were made 
subsequently to those on Drosera, Dionza, Drosophyllum, 
and Pinguicula; so that I was familar with the appearance 
of these substances when undergoing the early and final 
stages of digestion. We may therefore conclude : that 
Utricularia cannot digest the animals which it habitually 
captures. 
In most of the bladders the captured animals are so much 
decayed that they form a pale brown, pulpy mass, with 
their chitinous coats so tender that they fall to pieces with 
the greatest ease. The black pigment of the eye-spots is 
preserved better than anything else. Limbs, jaws, &c. are 
often found quite detached ; and this I suppose is the result 
of the vain struggles of the later captured animals. I have 
sometimes felt surprised at the small proportion of im- 
prisoned animals in a fresh state compared with those utterly 
decayed.* Mrs. Treat states with respect to the larvae above 
referred to, that “ usually in less than two days after a large 
“one was captured the fluid contents of the bladders began 
“ to assume a cloudy or muddy appearance, and often became 
“so dense that the outline of the animal was lost to view.” 
This statement raises the suspicion that the bladders secrete 
some ferment hastening the process of decay. There is no 
inherent improbability in this supposition, considering that 
meat soaked for ten minutes in water mingled with the 
milky juice of the papaw becomes quite tender and soon 
passes, as Browne remarks in his ‘Natural History of 
Jamaica,’ into a state of putridity. 
Whether or not the decay of the imprisoned animals is in 
any way hastened, it is certain that matter is absorbed from 
* [Schimper (‘ Botanische Zeitung,’ 1882, p. 245) was struck by the same 
fact in the case of U. cornuta.—F. D.] 
