34:2 BOTANY. [ch. xvii. 



stimulated, they move by reflex action. I find my old re- 

 sults about the astonishing sensitiveness of the nervous sys- 

 tem (! ?) of Drosera to various stimulants fully confirmed 

 and extended. . . . 



C. D. to Asa Gray. Down, June 3 [1874]. 



... I am now hard at work getting my book on Drosera 

 & Co. ready for the printers, but it will take some time, for I 

 am always finding out new points to observe. I think you 

 will be interested by my observations on the digestive pro- 

 cess in Drosera ; the secretion contains an acid of the acetic 

 series, and some ferment closely analogous to, but not iden- 

 tical with, pepsine ; for I have been making a long series of 

 comparative trials. ~No human being will believe what I 

 shall publish about the smallness of the doses of phosphate 

 of ammonia which act. . . . 



The manuscript of Insectivorous Plants was finished in 

 March 1875. He seems to have been more than usually op- 

 pressed by the writing of this book, thus he wrote to Sir J. 

 D. Hooker in February : 



" You ask about my book, and all that I can say is that 

 I am ready to commit suicide ; I thought it was decently 

 written, but find so much wants rewriting, that it will not 

 be ready to go to printers for two months, and then will 

 make a confoundedly big book. Murray will say that it is 

 no use publishing in the middle of summer, so I do not 

 know what will be the upshot ; but I begin to think that 

 every one who publishes a book is a fool." 



The book was published on July 2nd, 1875, and 2700 

 copies were sold out of the edition of 3000. 



The Kew Index of Plant- Names. 



Some account of my father's connection with the Index 

 of Plant-Names, now (1892) being printed by the Claren- 

 don Press, will be found in Mr. B. Daydon Jackson's paper 

 in the Journal of Botany, 1887, p. 151. Mr. Jackson quotes 

 the following statement by Sir J. D. Hooker : 



" Shortly before his death, Mr. Charles Darwin informed 

 Sir Joseph Hooker that it was his intention to devote a con- 

 siderable sum of money annually for some years in aid or 

 furtherance of some work or works of practical utility to 

 biological science, and to make provisions in his will in 



